How 'Fraternities' Work: A Metaphor

There existed, in a far away land, a mountain upon which a band of unruly brothers maintained a goat farm. While over thirty of such brothers lived on the farm, only a handful woke with dawn to feed the goats and rake the manure. The rest slept till noon, waking with the same bottle they passed out next to, and beginning the process anew. When the bottles in the barn ran low, they lumbered over to the main farmhouse looking for more.

At the farmhouse, the handful of brothers that had been up for hours milking the goats were now sending out a load of cheese to the village in exchange for more food and booze. As the rest of the brothers approached, an unlucky one was chosen to run the wagon down, but the remainder descended on the food and drink, goods the toil of their farm had profited. The hardworking brothers were powerless to stop the hoards now devouring the fruits of their labors, but alas this was the way things were done.

And the drinking continued through sunset, and the one brother returned with the days farm profits, to have done his duty through the rest of the month. But at the end of the day, the hard working brothers were rewarded, for as though they did the work the village women came regularly to the barn parties thrown by the idle drunk brothers who sat around all day practicing their horseshoe and social skills; rather than plowing the fields they looked to plow the ladies. And these ladies came, looking for their fill of moonshine and mountain man cock. So, the hardworking goat laboring brothers were able to rest and relax with a woman on each knee, and the farm was at peace.

Or rather it was at peace. But the barn noise had roused several gangs of sleeping vagabonds nearby who took to preying on the farm’s sleeping goats, making off with half a dozen a night. And soon the farm was in disarray. The idle brothers were too drunk to guard the fields at night (and unwilling to give up their women), but the farming brothers were too tired to keep good watch, and the vagabonds would come after they’d fallen fast asleep.

The goats were dwindling, and with them, the profits were drying up. With new rations for booze, the idle brothers were too greedy to share with the women and they stopped coming. The hardworking brothers grew resentful of the drunk brothers, and stopped working as hard, and soon things came to an almost standstill when no one worked and there was no booze to otherwise distract them, a result of no work getting done.

However, things were about to change. The season passed and a newcomer came with the fresh rains. This newcomer, whom we’ll call Thundercat for uncertain reasons, took in the situation at the almost defunct goat farm and decided to take pity on the down and out brothers. With his natural leadership skills he rallied the brothers to repair the farm, tend to the goats, and adopt a new and optimistic attitude with promises that he, Thundercat himself, would put an end to this goat thieving.

It was unanimous that Thundercat be the leader of the brothers, but when the village got wind of the situation, a messenger was sent to the goat farm. Worried that the revitalization of the farm would drive up demand and costs for the goat cheese and that they’d lose their women once again, the village bureaucracy demanded that Thundercat be trained in their three day leadership school, for assurance that the new farm would be run according to Sarbanes Oxley business and accounting code. There had been new changes in policy throughout the last year and the grumpy villagers demanded that Thundercat be brought up to speed.

But this troubled the brothers greatly. How can Thundercat protect and save their farm if he was to be detained in business training for three days? They looked at their depleted stock of goats (despite repeated attempts at mating the remaining seven goats, none of them looked preggers) and realized that in three days without Thundercat’s leadership, they would lose everything they had left. They pleaded with the village leaders, asking for an exception, that the timing was horrible. The brothers needed the village to buy their cheese and therefore would have to respect their decision, but the village was asking Thundercat to step down!

Will the villagers make an exception and leave the farm in Thundercat’s capable hands, to thrive and rebuild? Or will they remove him from the leadership position and doom the goat farm to poverty? Only you can decide….