![]() ![]() There, Asian American students had to run a gauntlet of young men beating them in a rite known as the Glass Ceiling, which was meant to symbolize their struggle to break through into the mainstream, according to the New York Times. In the US, the practice of hazing – which involves humiliating, depraved, often violent ceremonies imposed on members or aspiring members of a group – is notoriously common in the military, high school sports teams and college fraternities.Īt the extreme end of the scale, group rituals can even turn deadly.Įarlier in September, in the latest case to hit the news, 37 members of a Baruch College fraternity were charged – five of them with murder – after the 2013 death of 19-year-old Chun Hsien Deng during an initiation ritual at a rural retreat. The logo for Yale’s Skull and Bones secret society. “As they become more isolated from the wider community, are more interested in themselves than society and they become like a cult – normal constraints are released and they feel they can do anything they want,” said Abrams. Members have in the past been known to trash bars and students’ rooms like common thugs, and one rite apparently required members to burn a £50 note in front of a homeless person. The prime minister was also in Oxford’s Bullingdon Club, whose members wear vividly colored, bespoke formalwear advertising their allegiance. A member’s demonstration of high pedigree combined with base loyalty can win him trust and advancement among his peers for life.Ĭameron’s alleged activities took place in the Piers Gaveston student society at Oxford – a group which, according to the Daily Mail, specializes in “bizarre rituals and sexual excess”. Getting through extreme rituals in one of the world’s most exclusive clubs, he further explained, can be a traumatic but invaluable down payment for a young, ambitious member. “Most social groups have some sort of entry procedure – but some are more bizarre than others,” said Dominic Abrams, professor of social psychology at Britain’s University of Kent, in a beautiful piece of academic understatement.
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