LETTERS
LETTERS Don't blame the client A few issues back you solved all defense problems by proposing that no military officer be allowed to work for a defense contractor after retirement. Now you make...
...His essay will surely be met with charges of yellow journalism by many within the Greek system...
...Fraternities at Duke now regularly schedule professors to speak within their common rooms on topics of their choice...
...Would we like the quality of American journalism to be judged solely by Mr...
...DeParle has destroyed that dream...
...Unlike Mr...
...I was amused by one sentence: "These Delta Tau Deltas [at Duke] are the kind that poobahs at the national headquarters point to with pride...
...There are two misstatements about the Greek system which I would like to correct...
...DeParle's article...
...Contact with a professor outside of class was previously considered a social faux pas...
...DeParle is...
...The tormented has become a tormentor...
...Yet he did not resign over this policy dispute, but rather accepted a lucrative job offer...
...But Duke fraternities have no houses that we can close...
...Another misstatement concerns the Delt open motto, "Work for the Beautiful and the Good ." It was never secret at any time—unless translating it into classical Greek, as the undergraduates did, is so considered...
...The woman hatred, racism, and homophobia are only accessories to the real point, which is the humiliation not of these "others" but of the pledge himself...
...Rather than dismissing the essay as lies, the Greek system should use it to help address the real and ugly problems of drug abuse, date rape, hazing, racism, and antisemitism that flourish within the Greek system when the mentality of bees is allowed to supercede individuality...
...He did so and he lost, his position unsupported by his superiors, the administration, or Congress...
...FREDERICK D. KERSHNER JR...
...DeParle's description of his fraternity experience at Duke, which I think nauseates me rather more than it does him...
...But I do question his generalizing about the entire fraternity system from knowledge restricted to the Duke local scene...
...And then they are reshaped—as torturers...
...Sussman wrote about "pooped pilots and pooped planes...
...You can imagine what happens when a flight attendant's scheduled rest break is in conflict with the continuation of a full flight to a major city...
...We have done this in a number of cases when all else has failed...
...In the ten days since I read his piece, I started with shock and progressed to fury—how could he present such evidence, and come to such an intellectualized copout of a conclusion...
...The writers' reluctance to agree to the lower figure certainly was not "hairsplitting" DIANE OBERG Greenbelt, Maryland School daze Jason DeParle's article on his collegiate fraternity experience ["About Men," November] is extremely disturbing...
...During my 20 poobah years the national headquarters never pointed to Duke with any particular pride, because the chapter never seemed to do anything creative or positive with its large membership...
...And the sure result of that humiliation: he learns to do as he has been done by...
...DeParle's conclusions, that the "real" problems are isolation and posing, are dangerous...
...The incidents he describes as a Delta Tau Delta pledge at Duke University from 1979 to 1980 detail some of the tragic aspects of fraternity life that so many of us hear...
...PATRICK S. BOTTERMAN Arlington Heights, Illinois DeParle gives us a ten-page account of humiliation and degradation which occasionally slips over into murder, but he says that that is not what is so bad about the fraternity system—"The real problem ...was posing...
...Alas, Mr...
...DeParle, I wanted to find my "niche" among the roughly 6,000 undergraduates at Duke...
...What's wrong is that people are getting hurt in a system that teaches America's most privileged young men it's more than okay to hurt people...
...merely a clone of Geraldo Rivera...
...Also, the university has helped to expand the role of all fraternities on the Duke campus...
...Or might he have had some thought that, in addition to buying his access...
...Korb had ample chance to oppose these plans while a Defense Department official...
...SUSAN BIANCHI-SAND Washington, D.C...
...DeParle, however, I have yet to experience the debilitating and confining aspects of fraternity life that he felt, and I certainly did not feel the negative, adversarial mind-set that dominated his pledging period...
...PETER C. COOK Durham, North Carolina Mr...
...Tsk" And everyone can stand around and agree with this interesting and novel thought...
...Indianapolis, Indiana "About Men" should be required reading for anyone considering joining a fraternity or currently associated with one...
...JOHN L. BYRON Arlington, Virginia The 0.6 percent solution While I am hardly crying over the situation of Hollywood writers, John Eisendrath ["The Making of the Hollywood Working Class," November] might better understand their complaint if he recognized that a 1.8 percent royalty results in 50, not 0.6, percent more revenue than a 1.2 percent royalty...
...I have not felt "suffocated" or made to assume some "pose" because I am in a fraternity or, in particular, because I am a member of Delta Tau Delta...
...As a former member of Delta Tau Delta (Zeta Lambda Chapter, Western Illinois University), and who is proud of my association with many of its members, I must commend Jason DeParle for sharing his experience...
...Since I am a poobah myself, this is a matter on which I am far better informed than Mr...
...And as for this innocent wolf, Lawrence Korb, did he think he was joining a debate society when he signed on as Raytheon's head Washington lobbyist...
...They allow those who are closest to the problem, thoughtful professors and administrators, an intellectual out...
...Jason DeParle's article points out a number of worries that are still with us today, but I hope my positive experience nine years later in the exact same fraternity where he had such a negative experience, shows that fraternities can grow and mature...
...After reading the article, I can only say, thank God that was then, and this is now...
...Because of deplorable working conditions, low pay, and long hours, the flight attendants on these airlines have realized that the only way that they will ever obtain acceptable working conditions and decent pay is by belonging to a union...
...Fraternities have also continued a strong commitment to philanthropic endeavors, especially those involving the Durham area, while maintaining a higher grade-point average than the campus as a whole...
...Now you make a hero out of a top defense department civilian who sold out to a major defense contractor for $150,000 a year ["Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Raytheon Lobbyist," Lyle Crowley, November...
...DeParle describes at Duke...
...Although my experience with Delta Tau Delta does not compare with those shared by the author, I believe what he has written to be truthful in content...
...Smart, high status, white men— men some have called the "best and the brightest"—are systematically degraded...
...I would like to add flight attendants to the "pooped" category...
...He seems most bothered by the fact that the Delts didn't deliver what they promised—a happy community of brothers—and he seems unwilling to look at the implications of what they do deliver...
...and contacts, Raytheon expected loyalty, intelligence, and some measure of sophistication in the cultivation of the company's major customer...
...We have been forced to seek these rest requirements across the bargaining table, but flight attendants who are not represented by a union are left at the company's mercy...
...True, a national office occasionally has to step in, close the house, and reorganize the group when members no longer know what the fraternity idea is, scoff at fraternity ideals, and behave in the way Mr...
...Oh, yes," they can tuttut, "that's what's really wrong...
...The FAA stipulates rest requirements for pilots but not for flight attendants...
...The problem is that the fraternity system has become a school for terrorism...
...He has no standing for criticism...
...I am not disposed to challenge Mr...
...I decided to join Delts because I liked and respected the group, and, like Mr...
...Cook is president of the Delta Tau Delta chapter at Duke University...
...The citation of 151,000 members as an "all-time low" in 1973 is probably the low point of the post-World War II era...
...As president of the Association of Flight Attendants, representing 23,000 flight attendants, I agree that the state of commuter airline safety needs immediate attention by the Federal Aviation Administration...
...A Dwight Macdonald he is not...
...Since I am the past president referred to at least twice in "About Men," I would like to respond...
...As a retired professor who dropped his subscriptions to most scholarly journals and now relies almost exclusively on the Manchester Guardian Weekly for a window on the outside world, I had thought The Washington Monthly might be worth taking...
...How would you feel getting on an airplane knowing that the flight attendant who is responsible for saving your life has been on duty in excess of 20 hours...
...That process is exactly the same as the one real torture-trainers use...
...That's not what's wrong...
...Opinions vary on the 600-ship Navy and 15 carrier battle groups...
...More importantly, I do not consider myself an exception to the rule here at Duke...
...Korb's not a victim, he's a jerk...
...AMANDA J. MACKAY SMITH Durham, North Carolina Pooped pilots I appreciated Ed Sussman's article in the November issue of The Washington Monthly [ 'Hey, Lou, This Propeller Looks Pretty Sturdy to Me"] about the safety problems connected with commuter airlines...
...Some of the mindless antics that Mr...
...DeParle describes as "college revelry" are certainly still present today as they are on many college campuses, but the pervading sense of abuse and subjugation that he experienced during pledging has been removed...
...Gee willikers, what's the difference...
Vol. 20 • January 1989 • No. 12
