Yale Daily News

Societies are one of the best things about Yale. They respect the tradition of this wonderful place but also adapt to the evolving face of the University. While the tap lines have changed, the main mission of societies remain the same - to meet an entirely new group of people at a time when your social circles are stagnant and to share with them more than any group of people will ever know about you. The process teaches you a great deal about yourself, your values and goals. It is the greatest gift a Yale senior can receive.

This is a good primer, but why now? What was the news here -- the poll? Why was the poll conducted now?

David Icke isn't the best person to quote, guys. He also said the Queen was from a reptilian alien race and that he was the son of God.

Rowers compete in races, not "tournaments." I'm pretty sure Jack Vogelsang was present on tap day, and even more sure that Christina Person is the captain of the women's crew team.

CHECK YOUR FACTS.

Maybe you should consider having seniors who actually know what they're talking about write these kinds of articles, and not a sophomore who is trying to promote his stupid 4-year society.

A fun read, but there are some inaccuracies including but not limited to: the article's take on the old "quota" system for Bones, its description of WHS's interior, the timing of Mace and Chain's acquisition of its tomb, and the importance of tap-lines (except for bones and keys, line-tapping is still the defacto method of selection). If you really want to be tapped, join as many chummy, well-established extracurricular organizations as your time allows.

Just FYI: the Harvard clubs are "final" not "finals" clubs. It's because they used to be the "last" clubs after clubs for younger students.

A 5-second Google search on Mace and Chain would inform you that they've had their tomb since 2001. That's middle-school-level research.

This piece is more gossip than journalism. And it's not even interesting gossip.

doodlelover--you're a bit off--while there are many societies that still do tap lines, a fair number (certainly beyond bones and keys) do go beyond lines. Statistically, however, your advice is sound.

At #4
-Vogelsang was in San Francisco when Bones decided to override his tap.
-Mace & Chain apparently moved into a different house in 2006 ...

I believe Gaddis was in Berzelius, as was his father.

Interesting article, but Person (who is still a rower) got Vogelsang's tap - she wasn't his first choice. They insisted he didn't choose the captain of the male heavyweight crew.
I think the idea that saying tap-lines still exist because of the large % of people involved in societies who do extracurriculars is a bit stupid (#4). The society obviously has to know who you are to tap you. If you're a great musician, but you stay in your room all the time, you're not going to be noticed, which is the most important factor in being tapped.

With respect to my earlier comment on line-taps, I wasn't referring exclusive to the extra-curricular lines. The point is that you need at least one upperclassman to "pull" for you. Even though many societies have a democratic selection process in place (interviews, deliberations, voting, etc.), in the end, if a current member is dead set on tapping a specific individual, he/she is probably going to succeed. This is why the deliberations get so nasty and emotional sometimes. That is also why some lines survive even in the most hostile environments. Certain varsity teams, improv groups, a cappella groups (especially Shades and Whiffenpoofs), and cultural organizations go to great lengths to ensure their continued representation in the society system.

The secret societies at Yale are fascinating, but the fact that there are SO MANY and that none of them are actually secret takes away some of the mystique.

St. Elmo's has a place on Lynwood. Since when does a rented rundown off-campus housing place count as a tomb of a landed society?

Societies are more secret these days than any time during their heyday. Sure, Rumpus and IvyGate post the lists a year later, but at least they're not in the New York Times the week after. Tap night isn't even "public" for the landed societies as it was 60 years ago.

#14, clearly you've never been inside St. Elmo's. Also, it's not rented, the society owns it, and the property was bought to replace a tomb Yale appropriated (now a residence hall). Sorry to disappoint ya there

http://www.facilities.yale.edu/Campus/Building1.asp?lstBldg=1715

What a terrible deal for Elmo's! Now they own a shack on Lynwood (a very nice place, but still a shack comapred to what they used to have). Granted, it was not a senior society back in the 60's, but I still can't believe that its alumni gave up the space so easily.

Also, this article neglects to mention that St. Elmo was formed in the Sheffield Scientific School shortly after Berzelius and Book and Snake.

If any of these folks were interested in "informed conversation" and interesting ideas, they might consider making time with a dusty old physics, math or chemistry prof. instead of some retarded future government appointee. One really should make a distinction between people interested in the natural world around them and those interested in (exploiting) the idiotic and artificial social constructions of their own utterly insignificant society. Its a discrace that we call this a university.

M&C has been in the same tomb / house since 2001.

Secret societies are a great idea. I think they're a hoot! Isn't it obvious? I don't understand why there's a debate.

Why so bitter #19? "Informed conversation" and "interesting ideas" don't always involve natural science. One could also make the argument that even artificial (i.e. human) constructs are products - and therefore a part - of the natural world. Remember that societies, not unlike the university itself, produce all sorts of alumni, including those who devote their lives to scholarship. Also keep in mind that many societies regularly invite the "dusty old" professors in for conversation and that some faculty members graciously (and happily) serve as mentors. At least one club even offers graduate membership.

In the end, it makes very little difference. At Yale, you can meet and converse with anyone you choose, with or without society affiliation. If you don't get in, it's not a reflection on your character, talent, or potential (and anyone who argues otherwise is truly a fool). There's no point in harboring a grudge.

Ok, Doodler...are you seriously suggesting that being (or acting like) a socialite is a form of abstract contemplation of human society--analagous to the contemplation of Nature? That is similar to suggesting that playing pool is essentially the same as studying scattering theory in classical mechanics. Real scientists often (but not always) provide a nice antidote to the stupidity that is singularly exemplified in the "Secret Society". In the end it makes all the difference. Please consider my paraphrase of R. Feynman in order to make it clear that what you call bitterness (and I call sensibility) is shared by others. He said essentially that the pleasure in discovering phenomena--the knowledge that others have found my work useful--these things are REAL...In the end I have had to resign from societies of scientists because they spend too much of their time deciding who is WORTHY of being one of US...I find this repulsive. He was talking about the Royal Society...you can imagine what he might have said about Skull and Boneheads. The notion of a university as group of thinkers that find pleasure in their activities and not in academic advancement is of course dead, but to call this place any kind of "seat of learning" is going just a bit too far. Even two idiots named George Bush managed to pursue the art of thought to fruition here. When people with capacities like this discover the quark model of the proton I will of course look more deeply into what might be discussed at these dinner parties. Until then, I'll simply judge, as best I can, the kind of characters I see celebrated in such quarters and tally (in units of compassion, dedication and suffering) the service brought to the community by such "Societies".

"are you seriously suggesting that being (or acting like) a socialite is a form of abstract contemplation of human society--analagous to the contemplation of Nature?"

No - I am suggesting that the programs offered by at least some societies are much more intellectually involved than you give credit. Debates are numerous and often extremely heated. Abstract contemplation of human society is a common feature of these debates. Contemplation of nature is more rare.

"In the end it makes all the difference."

By saying 'it makes no difference,' I was suggesting that a society membership, as hyped up as it is, is not essential to one's experience at Yale. Just because your classmate is in Bones and you are not, it doesn't mean that you can't have a frank and meaningful discussion with that person.

"I find this repulsive."

I'm sure you were a rebel hiding in a bathroom stall or in the depths of SML during tap night, just in case any of these repulsive organizations came looking for you.

"The notion of a university as group of thinkers that find pleasure in their activities and not in academic advancement is of course dead, but to call this place any kind of 'seat of learning' is going just a bit too far."

It's not a clear-cut dichotomy. At Yale (and else where), one can find pleasure in their activities AND in academic advancements. Plenty of Yalies - society members or otherwise - manage to do both.

"Until then, I'll simply judge, as best I can, the kind of characters I see celebrated in such quarters and tally (in units of compassion, dedication and suffering) the service brought to the community by such 'Societies.'"

It appears that you do not have a good understanding of what (some of) the societies actually do. If you find these organizations repulsive because they exclude others, that can be justified - but to accuse them of anti-intellectualism with no supporting evidence is rather irresponsible, at least from a scholastic perspective.

This was funny. Look, when a frat gets 20/24 members in a class in a 'secret society' and somebody described those getting taps as a "Who's Who" of Toads crowd people...

Look, I really don't think we are going to agree. You didn't even understand that I was knocking "academic advancement" (people who feel the effect of receiving a gold sticker on their paper when they have just been exposed to some of the most interesting ideas humankind has to offer--gimme a break). You know the type: straight A's, milk monitor, studies "for" a test, never did a math problem that wasn't assigned...the kind of person that studies for standardized tests...no actual brain.

As for supporting evidence...I am doing the same mental computation you do when you conclude e.g. that brothels are not exactly the center of analytic thought. Only a moron would double check and cross-reference lists of named math theorems and known hookers. We all see, over quite a substantial period of time, the kind of people associated with different pursuits.

Just relax and think about it: Would a Yale sectret society appeal to Einstein or Ghandi or Plato or Newton or...any of the people whose ideas actually form the raison d'etre for places like Yale?

Dear "please" (#26, #24, #19--all the same person, yes?)

I used to spend a lot of time questioning the motivations of people who rush secret societies. I knew a girl who was interviewed for St. A's, but immediately de-rushed when they refused to tell her what activities the group engaged in during the time they spent together. I would have done the same--why agree to spend so much money and time on a group before you know what it's for?

On the other hand, I know a lot of other people who are in senior societies this year, and from what I can tell, societies, at least the more prestigious ones, would never tap anyone with "no actual brain." They tap people who have real passions, who do important research, who spend a lot of time not only seeking and contemplating knowledge, but also applying it. I imagine that a lot of people join societies because they know that they will encounter people there from whom they will learn a great deal, with whom they can engage in ideas and, yes, contemplation.

I understand your concerns, I really do, but if I may be honest, your opinion of society members reads as though a) you have never met any of them and b) that you used Gossip Girl as your main source.

The societies, like any institution, are not above criticism. But to suggest that anyone who joins does so because they have the goals of a "socialite" (by which, I assume you mean "one who seeks prestige") would be like saying that people only go to Yale for the name--far from true. I don't want to defend all aspects of the societies, because they are far from perfect--I myself wouldn't want to be in one--but I would like to kindly suggest that perhaps you might take a more open-minded look at them.

"...tap people who have real passions and do important reaearch..."
Just let me know when people like Steve Hawking, Ed Witten, John Nash, Andrew Wiles, Richard Dawkins, Kurt Goedel etc...etc...start entering or exiting these types of idiotic places. Better yet, email real thinkers and ask their opinions of these turbo-charged frats--I would love to hear the reply.
Here's fun: solicit the opinion of John Nash (real thinker) discoverer of the fascinating Nash Equilibrium and A. Greenspan (idiot) who spent his life misapplying above theorem and rational choice theory in general (he did make good grades...but it was just econ :) ) I'm sure you'll find something funny.
We could play that game all night...and the fellow who is 25 standard deviations smarter will always have the same predictable response..."I'm sorry, can you explain to me again why you want to be secret friends?"
You don't understand my concerns, you really don't. I leave you with a simple prediction: In a hundred years we'll be 1)studying the ideas of people who find the very thought of a sectret society...well...like bedwetting: very embarassing after age 5.
2)cleaning up some absurd mess caused by someone with "passion" and "extremely above average ablility" who "does important research"--like the Clintons or the Bushes or Greenspan or the inventor of the indispensible post-it note.

A lot was said about tapping for the secret societies, but when I was at Yale (mid-1980s) the night when the dozen or so a capella singing groups held their tap night was a big deal on campus. And the bonds that these people had often lasted well beyond their campus years.

I agree with #29 - singing group tap night was a bigger deal. The societies were thought of as elitist, and from my perspective as a non-member were totally irrelevant. Maybe they were beneficial to their members, but to everyone else they served no function whatsoever other than to occupy some prime real estate with their mysterious tombs.

Perhaps another reason they were so unimportant during my time (as were the virtually noneisitent fraternities) was that the legal drinking age was 18 and the residential college social committees supplied almost unlimited alcohaol (and sometimes other substances) at officially sanctioned parties and "mixers" almost 7 days a week.

In fact, there are many "real thinkers" who come out of these societies.

Scroll & Key graduated Fareed Zakaria, one of America's greatest foreign policy minds; John Enders, who cultured the polio virus; and Benjamin Spock, who wrote one of the most popular books of all time, on child rearing.

Wolf's Head had Charles Ives, one of the greatest modern classical composers, among others.

Skull & Bones includes Irving Fisher, one of the great economists and founder of the "Fisher equation"; William F Buckley, public conservative intellectual and founder of the National Review; John Hersey, Pulitzer-prize winning author of "Hiroshima", and
Austan Goolsbee, one of Obama's top economic advisors.

Your belief, that those "whose ideas actually form the raison d'etre for places like Yale" do not partake in the "turbo-charged frats" is wrong.

great piece - something i actually read through

...right, because a cappella taps are public. And back when society tap day was public, it too was the biggest event all year. As the authors of this article say, it was the reason to come to Yale.

Again, societies are important to those IN them, so of course you wouldn't find them all that beneficial if you were not. That's called exclusivity. That said, the same kind of camaraderie and loyalty that runs in a cappella is also the main draw of societies, so you should at least be able to understand the appeal, even if you didn't experience it yourself.

Societies don't pretend to do anything for everyone else (not in the sense that SigEp does Relay or something like that, anyway), so everyone can stop declaring them irrelevant as some groundbreaking revelation. What's wrong with organizations catering to their own qualified members?

These secret societies are acne to the face of Yale. They are elitist and anachronistic and have no place at a modern university campus. THe lavish historic buildings, shuttered to all but a select few, represent the arrogant attitudes and snobbism of the people within. The elitist pinheads who carry on these archaic traditions belong elsewhere.

@ "Please"

Greenspan wasn't in a secret society - he wasn't even at Yale.

More great society members:

A.B.Giamatti: Keys
Maynyard Mack: Keys
James Gamble Rogers: Keys
Cesar Pelli: Elihu
Bob Stern: Elihu

Once again. I'd like to thank some of the previous posters for proving my point beyond a reasonable doubt. You compared a baseball commissioner to Stephen Hawking. This is the kind of confusion I was trying to avoid. There's a big difference between a baseball commissioner, an English teacher, a few architects, and somebody who elucidated the space-time structure of the universe, showing that the laws of general relativity imply an initial singularity often referred to as the Big Bang. Kurt Godel demonstrated that any mathematical structure robust enough to contain ordinary arithmetic is either inconsistent or incomplete. You offered William F. Buckley, a pompous idiot. Greatness, I suppose, is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. Do you really think that in 300 years people will be pouring over the results of William F. Buckley and A.B. Giamatti? I suppose you do. Also notice the amazing lack of any serious scientific persona. There's a reason that the Physics Department isn't even in the top ten--not quite befitting Yale's general reputation. Anybody with a reasonable ability for analytic thought would find this place incredibly distasteful.

As for Greenspan, I was putting him up as an example of the type of person that could easily have entered or exited a Yale secret society or something like it. He lives on a reputation of being clever in a field dominated by ideology and with scarce results and poor methods. This is the sort of field in which it would be very helpful to have secret society credentials. Let's consider math now:

For those of you who are familiar with Ramanujan, it's very hard to imagine an extremely poor postal worker in India with no formal training in baseball commissioning being a baseball commissioner, being flown to the States by our greatest baseball commissioner because our greatest baseball commissioner realized that he could never commission as beautifully as Ramanujan. This is an important example to meditate on. In it is the key to understanding substantive differences between fields. If you understand it clearly, you will understand why we still study Euclid's theorems with great pleasure, whereas I defy you to name the results of the javelin commissioner presiding over the first Olympic Games. No doubt he was famous in his own time and many a numbskull conflated him and Euclid. I'm asking you to look back from 2500 years from now and understand that the derivation that black holes radiate (another result from Stephen Hawking) will inspire a sense of awe at the reach of the human mind. People who do those kinds of things very rarely have anything to do with secret societies and have openly shown their contempt for them.

Fareed Zakaria? Austan Goolsbee? Solidly in the Greenspan category. Very, very solidly not in the Euclid, Feynman, Witten, Einstein, Godel, Newton, etc. category. Are you serious? A freaking talk show host?

Do you think Fareed Zakaria and Austan Goolsbee want some jerk embarrassing them by comparing their intellectual results to Andrew Wiles' proof of the Fermat Theorem?

This amusing little discussion has made it fairly clear that mass education is limited by the intellectual level of the participants. You all presumably have a high school education? You didn't learn the difference between fame and/or success and intellectual product? That's totally amazing to me.

What I would like you to think about is how so many extremely talented thinkers come through this part of the country and manage specifically to avoid the secret societies. It simply can't be random. This is, after all, one of the most celebrated seats of learning in the world.

Figuring out that there had to be a Big Bang if general relativity is strictly correct--now that's exclusivity.

I'm surprised no one brought up J.W. Gibbs. That's probably because he doesn't have a talk show. Apparently when Scull and Bones was twenty minutes old, he used to hang out there. I guess that's the last interesting conversation that took place there.

refute Charles Ives. Or do you not know who that is?

Euclid, Feynman, Witten, Einstein, Godel and Newton were never Yale undergraduates...

...Your ridiculous reverence for the sciences proves that you too are limited. Have you no consideration for the study of the humanities?
Indeed the nature of Bones, Keys etc. is humanities and social science based, rather than natural science based because those societies were founded at Yale COLLEGE - not the Sheffield Scientific School. J.W.Gibbs can't have been in Bones as he was in the SSS - he could have been in Berzelius, St. A's or Book and Snake but I can't find that anywhere.

Your strange reverence for the natural sciences has evidently blinded you to history. you seem to fall into the trap of the zealot and the brainwashed in repeating your science-mantra Anyway, why do we necessarily care if people remember those in Secret Societies?

...Perhaps in this country, the most famous member of any secret society was George Washington. A freemason. But hey, he probably won't be remembered by history (cough cough).

Indeed, you forget to mention Galileo, who was a member of the Illuminati, and a ton of scientists who formed secret societies at the time of the Renaissance against the church.
Both Herder and Goethe were part of the Bavarian Illuminati too.
What about other literary men? Yeats: part of the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, Oscar Wilde: part of the Order of Chaeronea... And so on.

Great, to my knowledge Derrida, Lacan, Althusser, Marx, Freud, Hegel, Heidegger, Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein etc. might not have been in secret clubs, but they were all part of select organizations like universities and thinktanks. Secret Societies are simply an extension of this: they were and still are a place for sharing ideas. Oh, and they give out scholarships to great thinkers to allow them to continue their work: see Harold Bloom's John Addison Porter Prize awarded by Keys.
Plus, to call scholars such as Maynard Mack, Giamatti and W.L Phelps "English Teachers" is insulting. Simply because your ritualistic over-valorization of science as the primary mode of historical dialectic doesn't take any notice of the humanities and cannot see its own flaws (have we not learned that there can be no truth but particular truth?), do not denegrate real scholarship. You are simply falling into a realm of ignorance which cannot see its own flaws and the sparks of truth all around it.

And hey, even Pythagoras was in a secret society!

Dear but,

Thanks for "proving" that J.W. Gibbs wasn't tainted...I'd love to believe it...Your reasoning however is wrong, although I am loath to argue with it. (Hint: He was already a bit older than an undergrad at the birth of the silly place.)

The reason I focused on science is simply to show that (and you can interpret this as you like) along with extraordinary mathematical prowess and/or instinct and tact for seeing into the secrets of Nature, VERY often comes

1) A DEEP skepticism of organized religious/political authority and the sanctity/intellectual ability of its practitioners.

2) A general contempt for honors, congratulations, robes, tassels, universities, clubs, exclusivity, wealth, connections, networking, grades, CV's, new clothing styles,...,the idea that Tony Blair should lecture about piety. I hope you can get the pattern.

I thought these facts had descended to popular culture and would therefore be "Yale accessible".

Being remembered, on its own, does not mean anything...I am quite sure that George Bush (a member, no?) will cast a very long shadow on history, as did George Washington. I was simply trying to point out that many truth seekers that we all PRETEND to admire, and whose work forms the backbone of the more difficult classes here, can't/couldn't stand the silly robes and traditions and what they stand for. These secret societies are one (large) step beyond even that.

Of course if you are able to follow the spirit of my reasoning, you should also be able to see the difference between forming a scientific group whose purpose is to hide from violent religious/political zealots, and secret societies of gregarious rich people. Just in case you still don't get it: I am making a distinction between e.g. 1) the Underground Railroad and 2) Scull and Bones. I'm amazed it confused you.

I know it’s off the topic a bit...and I'm not sure how to break it to you, but Derrida and Lacan are perpetrators of an enormous intellectual fraud. They and their students copy math formulas (they clearly don't understand) out of books to impress their friends. See A. Sokal for details. Hegel thought he knew that the search for further planets was futile...Kant thought he had proved the impossibility of non-Euclidean geometry.

More to the point, I agree that universities can have aspects that are much like secret societies. They often make colossal and embarrassing "mistakes" when they take themselves seriously...like (and please see that this is no coincidence) deciding not to "tap" the greatest 20th century mind in theoretical physics. It is because of these episodes and others that, when Grisha Perelman (real thinker) was asked to provide a CV as part of the formality of being employed by a university, he refused, saying, "If you understand my work you don't need a CV; if you need a CV you don't understand my work." His proof of the Poincare conjecture may not be well known to you, but it will form a part of basic human knowledge that your grandchildren might understand.

I'm not entirely sure why you brought up Marx as having...sort of "incidentally" not been part of a Yale style secret society. Have you read this guy...he would never have stopped vomiting if he knew people pretended to discuss his ideas in such quarters.

The Pythagoreans were a loopy cult. They killed the fellow that proved the square root of two is irrational. A terrific example of the sterling work of a (it wasn't secret or exclusive) "society". Well played!

And for you Christians...what do you think Jesus would think about secret societies? Or for that matter, keeping money you made in a hedge fund? Have you ever thought about it?

You people are hopeless.

Now please, I've asked once and I won't ask again. GIVE ME A PEDANTIC, DISMISSIVE RIFF ON CHARLES IVES.

Ah yes, the great Stephen Hawking. He's the one who proved that writing a series of disdainful comments in response to a college newspaper article is a good way to demonstrate superior maturity and intellectual capacity, as well as a deeper than usual knowledge of what uses of one's time are most indicative of one's potential to contribute to humanity's most significant achievements.

Did I get that right, Mr. Please?

Wow! This has to be the most pompous comment board I've ever seen. To the excessively voluble: either you are all underclassmen with something to prove or serious procrastinators who have left studies to the wayside. Regardless, I implore you, do get a life!

"Please", stop belaboring your point. If someone doesn't get what you're trying to say by now, they never will. I share your skepticism of secret societies. I think they are ridiculous for many of the reasons you do.

However, while dismissing everything other than mathematics and physics, perhaps you should delve into a little psychology and analyze why you feel the need to: 1. set yourself above others with comments like "you people are hopeless". 2. Do so on a college board newspaper. These actions reek of desperateness. Is this the only way you can get the attention and validation you seek?

Dear everyone, particularly those posting over four paragraphs:

Get a life.

Ok...I get it. Instead of wasting my time having a contentious philosophical debate over what, to thinking people, are intensely important issues, I should "get a life". Presumably you mean exchange the hour or so of free time I spent writing and thinking about these issues with an entire evening of getting wasted, or shopping, or...many of the other activities students engage in (under the pretext of the normal college experience) without in the least being criticized for wasting their time.

I see absolutely no argument against the proposition that many of you are here simply to further your ultimate goal of bourgeois respectability, and have no real interest in anything else. Why are you in college? A "trade/finishing school for the wealthy" would have served your purposes.

Let you in on a hint: that is what Yale IS.

Can anyone understand my desperateness? Since when are contentious discussions like this out of place in an academic environment? When they are out of place, the environment is not...well I think you get it.

If you are really desperate--an interestingly strong word to use in a situation so unimportant as this--then take the following to heart:

You can't have a serious philosophical debate with people whom you refuse to respect. If you go into everything assuming your ideas are better than those of the people with whom you are interacting, you won't learn anything, and neither will they. If you don't come away with anything new, these debates won't be serious, and they won't be worth your time.

There are many things wrong with your assumptions, among them that those who go to Yale "have no real interest in anything," sentiments which smack of a deep-seated bitterness. If you could relinquish these assumptions, these debates might be worth your time. But as long as you cannot, then the only conceivable reason for you to write such lengthy and disdainful responses to Yalies' explanations--including those of a couple Yalies who appear to share your suspicion of secret societies--is to make yourself feel smart by displaying your detailed knowledge of the history of human thought and using it to talk down to some of the most intelligent, hardest working students in the world. That is not worth your, or anyone else's time, and it is why people are telling you to get a life.

Your studies, evidently, have been detailed, but from them you have clearly gleaned little perspective or knowledge of human nature. This is why you can't (or refuse to) comprehend what value people might find in a secret society, or at a school like Yale. I suggest you get wasted or go shopping, or do something that will help you relax, so that you can gain some.

Until you do, here's some advice--lose the disdain, get an open mind (you'll find you'll need one once you make it to a real academic setting, not just an online message board where you can be as much of a dick as you want and suffer no consequences beyond people not listening to you), and then maybe you'll be ready for a contentious philosophical debate--perhaps even one about actual philosophy, in which there are few, if any, right answers.

Lame. I get wanting to be in a club while you're at Yale and staying in touch with the club/people after you graduate but to think that your Manuscript meetings are changing the world...