Thursday, December 27, 2012

Reprobate

I think the reason I am so good at running nightclubs is that I really don't care about most of the people I serve.
Yet, I get pleasure from seeing whether I can influence a group to buy one product or another.
I get pleasure from watching the herd follow the herd which is following what it knows not.
I am amused that people will spend their hard-earned cash on things which they know are of little benefit to their well being.
I laugh that people act benevolently as long as they are part of a larger group donating money to deserving charities just so long as each benefit is sold as a 'Party With a Purpose'.
I laugh at supposedly well-established people who think that popularity is of the utmost importance.
I laugh at the game of Social Rochambeau as status-seeking people are influenced by others who are being influenced by others who are ultimately being influenced by the first group to begin with.
At the end of the day, I only care about the kids I tutor and the elderly I take care of - the club is just a lab.
And to run this lab - I must be a pretty effed-up personality.

6 comments:

CNu said...

Social Rochambeau means rock-paper-scissors?

As for the rest:

1. The operating club is a large machine, and a proxy for specific aspects of personality.

2. You see its machinations clearly, as clearly as a man viewing a splinter in another man's eye.

3. Club patrons are the legion of little mechanical I's that make up certain aspects of an individual personality.

4. Your clarity with regard to this proxy, and genius at pandering to its constituent I's - is directly proportional to your knowledge and awareness of certain aspects of your own personality, your grasp of certain of your own I's.

To run this lab requires a high degree of self-awareness. I'm curious to know if you believe that you could reconstitute it anywhere among any socio-economic constituency?

uglyblackjohn said...

Yeah.. There doesn't seem to be any group that isn't influenced by another. Like in fashion - high fashion often takes it's cues from the street.

But the club is a venue that I use to try to figure out where I went wrong in changing my ghetto. I could never turn that neighborhood around - people (no matter how low the rent, the tutoring, the social services provided) never wanted to make their lives better. So, no... Unless I can be a part of the culture, I doubt that I can make changes in the hood. (Which is all I was concerned with.)

CNu said...

The club is a venue for shearing sheep who eagerly (passionately) volunteer to be sheared. I mean, they wash-up, dress-up, make-up, and fake-up in pursuit of something gratifying in that club, right? Folks put effort into getting their vice on, right?

What organizations or institutions do you know of that can get others to put in voluntarily passionate work toward getting their virtue on?

What do you want for your hood that you believe it should want for itself?

Anonymous said...

I think sociol rochambeau is a wine you drink with socialroquefort. I spilled water on my kapto and it snapped crackled and popped! I'm writing from the I pod:(spent the entire day today cleaning at the new house!! Ugh!

I need a glass of that rochambeau!
Desertflower

Anonymous said...

Happy New Year John! Health,happiness and prosperity to you and the family!

uglyblackjohn said...

What should they want?
Well... To get out of the hood.
But I doubtthis will will ever happen for most.