What are my secret thoughts about Rituals

My last blog entry was about how I felt about Rituals, the importance of rituals in defining the values of the fraternity, and how they help to unite the fraternity in sharing a common goal.

During our past class, we had a long discussion about Rituals, and other peoples thoughts on Rituals. Most of the answers were disappointing, but not surprising to me. Since I already discussed my thoughts about Rituals in my last blog, I would just like to take a little time to discuss my thoughts on the Ritual process and how many people view their Rituals.

First of all, for me, the common Ritual that we described in class on Friday puzzled me. While both my fraternity's Ritual and the common Ritual do define the values of the fraternity, my fraternity's Ritual is much more than a simple piece of paper. To put it simply, my fraternity's Ritual doesn't just simply consist of a story that is to be told and heard by only a part of the members once a semester. Rather than merely being read, it has been performed by all members of our fraternity so that will always be ingrained in our hearts and memories. In this manner, I do believe that my fraternity's Ritual is more effective, but not better or worse in any way.

One of the things we talked about in class was how many people didn't even know their own Rituals because they forget it after they hear it. To me that is absolutely disgraceful. How can you be in a fraternity, and not know what it's about. For all the money that being part of a fraternity costs, you should have definitely joined the fraternity because you believed in its values, because you wanted to become a better and stronger person through the fraternity. Knowing a fraternity's Ritual means understanding its values. Understanding its values is the first step in being able to become a leader of the fraternity and bettering the fraternity. Being a leader in any way means you have become a better and stronger person.

During class, it was also discussed how many people valued drinking and parties the most about the fraternity. After I heard this, I was like well no wonder a lot of people have a bad image of fraternities. Not only do many members not know their Ritual, they basically go straight against the values of the fraternity by constantly promoting drinking and partying as the fraternal image. And seriously, I think it's pretty sad that a person would go through all that trouble and pay that much money so they could drink and party more.

So to sum it up, I was very surprised when I learned about the common Ritual process. Even though the process is different, I believe the significance behind these processes are still the same. It is a way to understand the fraternal values and the first step to leading your fraternity. I am very disappointed at the fact that many people don't know their own Rituals, but all I can say is that they're the ones who are losing out.