The excumation of usable pasts, (‘Sorority Girl’) to serve the political present, is valuable tool of the ‘The Straussian Moment’!
Sep 27, 2025
By Suzy Weiss
It was slightly embarrassing to be in Greek life when I was at college. Or maybe I was just slightly embarrassed; I really needed to pay dues to have access to friends? Weren’t sororities kind of retrograde, and the people who inhabited them vapid and conforming? Wasn’t the point of college to branch out on your own, instead of sheltering in place with a bunch of people more or less identical to you?
To rush, which is the process by which Greek houses vie for freshman and vice versa, you had to haul ass all day down the main drag off-campus where all the sorority and frat houses were, wearing the same T-shirt as thousands of other Greek hopefuls, smiling and tugging down jean shorts from wherever they’d migrated to on your person. The actual recruitment felt like a hyper-feminized job interview. There was singing, clapping, the kind of hug where torsos don’t touch, and many forced conversations and fake compliments. A girl might tell you, “I love your hair!” and then to the next girl in line, “I love your hair!”
I’ve been having flashbacks this month because videos of rush from across America have been going viral on TikTok; the trend, which has earned the name ‘RushTok,’ is a modern fragmented reality show, told from multiple perspectives. New girls on campus film themselves nervously getting ready to embark on the days’ tight schedules—their eye trained on a specific combination of three Greek letters out on the horizon. The houses themselves put out high-energy agitprop for Delta Delta Delta, or Kappa Kappa Gamma, or whatever. The moms of the freshmen, or Rush Moms, have emerged as bit characters to speak out about the stress it causes them to watch their daughter compete in a social obstacle course.
Earlier this week, the Atlantic’s Caitlin Flanagan revealed she has been sucked into the carousel of outfits and accessories—including translucent totes with “the widest, most luxurious grosgrain ribbons you’ve ever seen in your life”—and her conclusion is this: “As cowed as the Bambi-like PNMs [potential new members] may appear in their original videos, membership itself seems to make showgirls of them all.”
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The the full cast is revelatory of a time and place long gone, for a reason! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041662/?ref_=ttfc_ov_i
Peter Thiel On “The Straussian Moment”
Peter Thiel, cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, discusses his essay “The Straussian Moment,” describing how the ancients believed in the power of the intellect and the weakness of the will, but how today we believe the opposite. We want machines to do the thinking, because we don’t trust rationality. Also, Thiel gives his overview on the current American political scene and discusses whether he will endorse President Trump in 2020.
https://www.hoover.org/research/peter-thiel-straussian-moment-0
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Peter Thiel made this point on The James Altucher Show while discussing his recently released book (Zero to One). At minute 11:35 of the podcast, he mentions how some of the more successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley share this common “dysfunction”:
“One of the strange things in Silicon Valley is that so many of these successful entrepreneurs suffer from a mild form of Asperger’s or something like that. And I always think of this as an incredible indictment of our society: What sort of society is it where, if you do not have Asperger’s, you will pick up on all these social cues that discourage you from pursuing creative original ideas.”
Political Cynic.
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