There exists a species of voluntary associations that most students think is confined to the boundaries of an educational institution, and is often named through a trite and tedious process of random selection from the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet, but share almost nothing in common with the Lyceum or the Academy. They often seek to justify their existence through an advocacy of fraternal bonds or the like, but deep inside their basements, prove to be dens of licentiousness and hedonism, the sort that is unrestrained and can only lead to a sordid Epicureanism. But this belief –– the belief that such associations are unique –– or that they lack any moral responsiblity for the actions of their members, is at once a grave fallacy that reinforces the Epicurean overtones of the entire enterprise in its present form. Their overtures to conserving their status exist not for the love of their original aims, the telos of the association, but for the pursuit of license, of the sort of brotherly love that seeks to protect those in the wrong, only because it casts doubt, if wrongdoing is ever admitted, on the entire enterprise itself. Such is the nature of a certain form of association, commonly found concentrated on a particular avenue at the College on the Hill. On occasion, members of these associations have been accused, like clockwork, of heinous acts, and then nothing happens, for the association itself does not hold that it is responsible to ensure the application and enforcement of propriety norms of conduct.

    Although such associations can only exist at the periphery of institutions of higher learning, they seek to subtract from the aim of learning, replacing rightful edification with the temporary release of the lower passions. The arguments offered for their existence vary, from preserving the ‘cultural’ fabric of the institution, or toward more expedient forms of reasoning. Yet, it is assumed that the primary duty of such a species of association can never be compatible with its membership of the genus of education. This sort of association is, to put it more clearly, of the genus ‘educational’, and as much must have as its telos the furtherance of the aims of an edifying association, even if its primary responsiblity is the building of familial bonds between its members. If it were to be held that such an association had no part to play in the genus of educational associations, even if its involvement in such activities may be peripheral, then the manner in which the existence of these associations were justified initially would be lost in the present, where the focus has shifted from the room full of tomes to a subterranean chamber where the elixir of life is replaced with the foul-smelling, vomit-inducing stench of a substance that is in essence merely urine. Instead of pushing for the primacy of the library in such an association, the association has instead chosen to advocate the primacy of the subterrenean cave, where those who spend their days half-heartedly in the pursuit of knowledge go to wantonly destroy what they have learnt, and then to regress further down the pit of ignorance. The moral and intellectual edification is razed, at once, to the ground.

    Such an association has no justification for existence, whether on sentimental or rational grounds. If an institution were to love, and to love dearly the students it sought to educate, it would seek to reform, in some manner, these havens of sin. But this is not the case: the young love frolick, and their moral bearings seem to be sought in the direction of temporary felicity. But part of education is inculcating virtue in the student body, which cannot be done if its work is subverted either at the institutional level by a faculty which denies the existence of virtue, or by the students themselves, who seek license and not that which is right.

    There is another way, another manner in which these associations may be permitted, if they are to be considered integral to education, even if the education institution within which they exist has ‘colleges’ or smaller units of organisation. Such voluntary associations exist to provide a home for those engaged in the studia humanitatis, who seek to associate voluntarily and in exercise of the freedom of association, but mindful of the aim of existence. The telos of man is not license, but contemplation, of seeking the Aristotelian ‘thought thinking itself’. It is the love of rightful custom and tradition, of seeking to expand one’s horizons such that one is a better humanist, and consequently one is able to associate with a community of student-scholars in consort with faculty-scholars, who share a peculiar calling. This is, by necessity, divorced in some form from the practical world, the world of action; it is an association which has as its end the world of forms. It has as its daily goal recognition of the gradual steps to knowledge: it is not the form of association that goes a maiore ad minus, but a minore ad maius. It is necessarily constructive and profitable for the mind, for the soul, not for the flesh. It is necessarily engaged to virtue, ab initio, and it is aimed ad libitum, for those who seek to be part of such an association are ipso facto find pleasure in knowledge, in learning; its motto shall be emollit mores nec sinit esse feros.

    Corruption of such an association, however, will be hard to avoid. It will remain the moral obligation of such an association to seek its members in the ranks of those who are willing to learn and subject themselves to discipline and moderation, to edification and rigour, not to those who seek a place to stay or fraternal ties of license. It will have and maintain a moral responsibility toward its members and to the institution where it thrives and draws its lifeblood from. It seeks to add, never to subtract. Such is the sort of voluntary association that ought to be permissible and encouraged.