Hazing

Europe

France

One even named formerly hazing a certain number of Rite S, which sometimes arrived from there at the limits of the Brimade, of the Racket (“tax” of the 3/2 by the 5/2 in mole in the Sixties).

The practice of the hazing in this form, because of its abuses, ended up being officially prohibited under the ministry of Ségolène Royal. The Penal code French defines the hazing as a whole of acts humiliating or degrading in school (Book II, title II, Chapitre V, Section 3 (a), Article 225-16-1). It is punished six months of prison and: 7500 euros of fine.

One however continues to indicate under this name a certain number of “ceremonies of reception” or “days of integration” of young promotions, wanting to be a more humorous tendency today and being given just for goal to dissuade the aforementioned new to catch the “famous person” because of their admission, and to create in fact a spirit of cohesion between members of the same promotion. That also makes it possible “new” to make knowledge with the “old hand”.

Certain establishments, such as for example the School of the mines of Nancy, had abolished the hazing-brimade as of 1957, and had replaced it by a series of “exploits” that the new ones were to achieve to prove their débrouillard spirit or joker (to make sound at midnight the bells of the cathedral, for example).

Americas

One of the annual traditions most famous is the Ditch day California Institute off Technology (Caltech), so to speak a reversed hazing: the old ones leave the campus during twenty-four hours, and the new ones have this amount of time (but often prepared during months) “to trap” their rooms by all the possible ways and conceivable (one saw of them sometimes certain transforms in swimming pools, or their walled doors in a completely undetectable way). It belongs to old, guided themselves by the old lesson the their elder ones, to prevent these traps or failing this, by means of their only sagacity, to thwart them.

Controversies around the hazing

The hazing, practical social spread and ritualized, gave place to a multitude of analyzes, sometimes very divergent. Thus, certain psychologists speak about traumatisms, infantile and bestial regression, défoulement collective. Others, like Michael Houseman, proposed the social role of the hazing, which establishes the new hierarchies inside the school and between the school and outside. Some see in the hazing a means for the group of being protected and/or of being constituted. Others see a rite of initiation there, of passage, at the end which the new arrival acquires the statute of member of the community coed. Thus, according to the interlocutor, the hazing can be a ritual, certainly a little odd, but nevertheless essential to avoid saddle-oyster and the crumbling of the company, whereas for others it is a plague to be fought absolutely.

hazing: a rite of passage?

See also: Rite of passage

The hazing can be comparable with a rite of passage insofar as it allows, believe bizutés and the bizuteurs, to reach a new statute and to belong to a group. One finds it according to the same rules in different establishments at different times. The first phase is that of separation, of the cut of the fasteners. In the clearest cases, the future initiate has any more neither name, neither passed, nor right. He is tiny room to the state of affair. Its physical appearance changes, it carries an imposed ornament, often ridiculous. It must lose any distinctive external sign pointing out its old statute and its personality. This negation is reinforced by the loss of patronym. The new one is affected of a devaluing nickname, even of a number. Then, succeeds this phase one decisive period, that of the rite of margin, the marginal life. It allows the " setting flat " personalities and the training of the culture specific to the school, its habits and its language. This catch in hand is generally brutal and without call. The old ones create a climate of panic, set up a setting in impressive scene, multiply the insults and the punishments. Copied on a military symbolic system, raising will try to melt each individual in the group and to leave him like alternative only the tender or exclusion. Lastly, the exit of the initiate occurs, his aggregation with the group. It is generally symbolized by a general festival. Old and new are then on an equal footing. The administration generally takes part in it. This ritual allows the integration of new the group.

Martine Segalen, in " Rites and ritual contemporains" (1998), this point of view supplements. For it, in the hazings as in the African rites of initiation, the ritual aims at working a new man. It sets up a group of pars, a welded community. The hazing makes it possible the group to select and recognize most suited, it tests the physical and psychological endurance the new ones. Thus, the hazing is beneficial; for the administration, because it sets up a community of pupils with whom it will be able to dialog, but also for the company because it sets up intermediate solidarity between the individuals and the State and avoids a too great individuation.

These arguments are often taken again by the bizuteurs. Those, especially when the hazing exists for a long time, defend the direction of this demonstration, as well as the values and the traditions which it perpetuates. For them, the hazing creates a fraternal community and it perpetuates the spirit of the school. Those stress also the cordial relations between students whom it creates, which makes it possible to compensate for a too sharp competitive spirit.

differences between hazing and rite in initiation:

The adversaries of the explanations anthropological of the hazing point out the many important differences between the rites of initiation of the pre-modern companies and the hazings modern. First of all, in unfolding: they are not adults who give initiation to the young people, but young people who force young people to obey to them. In the traditional ceremonies, the goal is to transmit a mythology, lesson, which often is not the case in the hazing. Moreover, the hazing does not make pass the child to the statute of adult. The new one obtains only one transitory statute of student. The difference is that we are today in companies of the writing, or the true rite of passage is the examination. The hazing would thus resemble more one show of initiation, a ceremony which would not have, far from there, the direction and the importance of a rite of passage. The hazing would be thus, within the meaning of its detractors, anything else that what it seems to be at first sight, i.e. a public humiliation.

Internal bond

External bonds

hazing in questions
S.O.S-hazing
CNCB: National committee against the hazing (France)

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