Skull and Bones

From The SpiritWiki

Skull and Bones is a collegiate level Ideological Institutionsthat focuses on colonizing and indoctrinating the best and the brightest at Yale. Selections appear carefully researched, and designed to capture future film-makers, journalists, religious leaders, sports elites, military, and minority elites.[1]

Examples

Ideological Institution >

Notes

If the society had a good year, this is what the "ideal" group will consist of: a football captain; a Chairman of the Yale Daily News; a conspicuous radical; a Whiffenpoof; a swimming captain; a notorious drunk with a 94 average; a film-maker; a political columnist; a religious group leader; a Chairman of the Lit; a foreigner; a ladies' man with two motorcycles; an ex-service man; a negro, if there are enough to go around; a guy nobody else in the group had heard of, ever.[2]

Operates by perpetuating old energy archetypes, through ritual and also ongoing discussion.

Collects "dirt" on its members, example, past sexual events, which may sometimes be offering evidence on "conquests" (which may reasonably be expected, given the deeply embedded patriarchy in America, to potentially an accounting of rapes).

One of the standard pieces of lore about Skull and Bones is that each member must at some point give an account of his sexual history, known as the CB (for "Connubial Bliss"). "After the first one or two times it's like guys listing their conquests, and that gets old," one young Bonesman told me recently. "There's just not that much to talk about"—and so CBs have evolved into relationship discussions. "It's the kind of stuff a lot of guys do with their teammates," says another Bonesman ('83). [3]

Bonesmen (what society members call all themselves) refer to members of the public as "barbarians."

In an Atlantic article, Alexandra Robbins refers to an "especially susceptible kind of 'barbarian' as it pooh-poohs the ideological functions of the organization, and diverts attention by casting skeptics and critics as conspiracy nuts.

Footnotes

  1. Robbins, Alexandra. “George W., Knight of Eulogia.” The Atlantic, 2000. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/george-w-knight-of-eulogia/304686/.
  2. Robbins, Alexandra. “George W., Knight of Eulogia.” The Atlantic, 2000. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/george-w-knight-of-eulogia/304686/.
  3. Robbins, Alexandra. “George W., Knight of Eulogia.” The Atlantic, 2000. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/05/george-w-knight-of-eulogia/304686/.