I once heard it said, “Hazing will stop when hazers stop hazing.” Truer words have never been spoken. It’s also true that crime will stop when criminals stop committing crime, and obesity will end when obese people diet and exercise. There’s a simplicity to the analysis of these problems, and a simplicity to the solutions. The problem is that they are too simple. In the context of hazing, even if we were to assume that hazing is only about the actions of hazers, to stop hazing, we’d need to know the key factors that propel hazers toward their chosen end. However, assume for a moment, that hazing is about something more—in addition to—a hazer’s decision to haze. Then, we’d need to sift through dozens or hundreds of reasons why hazing exists and persists from many different perspectives and at many different levels.
There’s a reason why suspending hazers from universities doesn’t impact hazing. There’s a reason why suing them and even convicting them of hazing—or some other criminal offense—doesn’t move the needle on the issue. Even when a parent loses a child due to hazing and sues, and prevails over the organization or institution they deem responsible, little to nothing changes. Their righteous indignation, channeled—by attorneys—through the law as an instrument of social change, makes little difference. Maybe it does to them, but in the grand scheme of things, hazing marches on. The deaths continue. At the heart of the issue is that you have many people wanting to meaningfully address hazing. However, they narrow their focus on one actor or institution and one or two reasons to explain hazing. They focus their energy on that actor and that reason, and they fail to move the needle. That’s because, hazing has been resistant to efforts to eradicate it because it is multi-layered, with multiple parts, interacting off one another. It’s, in a word: complex.
Complexity examines bundles of ideas, people, and institutions and what results when these bundles interact. Complexity doesn’t come from the actions of just one person and, thus, can’t be reduced to the individual level. As such, a complex system is one in which the constituent parts interact with sufficient intricacy that they cannot be predicted by simplistic analysis. Complexity isn’t synonymous with the concept “complicated.” A system is complicated only if it can be given a complete description in terms of its individual parts. A complex system can’t be fully explained by analyzing its individual components, because they’re constantly evolving and playing off one another.
Accordingly, for those who seek a way forward in turning a meaningful corner on hazing, the old frameworks and ideas won’t suffice. No speech or workshop or hazing statute or lawsuit or criminal prosecution will address the matter, certainly not in isolation. A new set of ideas, patterns of relations, and connections between actors and institutions must be brought to bear in seeking real solutions. Part of the challenge will be fashioning questions we don’t yet know to ask and then charting a course toward wherever those questions take us in finding answers. Then we must double back to ask more precise and sophisticated questions, only to venture forth in search of better answers. All the while, we must stitch these answers together to make sense of them as a whole and not in isolation from one another.
The other part of the challenge will be accepting what we find. The answers may not be pretty or even palatable. What if hazing persists because, to some degree, it works—i.e., it commits people to each other and institutions? What if hazing persists because some victims seek it out and desire it? What if hazing persists because the way that we construct masculinity in this society propels men towards provincial notions of masculinity—e.g., drinking and violence in hazing? What if hazing persists because university staff haven’t even availed themselves to the research already available on the topic in ways that would help them be better antihazing advocates? What if hazing persists because organizations reject the kinds of ideas and leadership that could help them develop more research-driven solutions? What if lawyers use ineffective legal strategies to get to the heart of the matter in litigation? In short, if we could find the answers—answers to questions that we haven’t even begun to ask—would we be prepared for them? Could we handle them, especially where the answers that we’ve yet to arrive at cause each of us, who claim to want hazing to end, to question our most basic assumptions about hazing?
In the end, after we’ve found what we’re looking for, will we be ready to embrace it in all its complexity and messiness? Will we be ready to bridge divides and close breaches and hear new or outcast voices in ways that bind broad constituencies and coalitions toward a common goal? In the end, once the solutions reveal themselves, will we have the will to do what needs to be done? Only time will tell.
Gregory S. Parks is currently working on a book about hazing in African American fraternities and sororities, tentatively titled Death March.