What's society going to be like POST CLINTON.

-----Original Message-----
From: James R. Turner [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 6:54 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Campus Parties


The Pimp and Ho party might be criticized on the basis of:
1.   The current trend for athletes seeking success is to mentally visualize
the excellent performance.  It somehow contributes to mind-body coordination
in achieving excellence in actual performance.  By analogy, the Pimp-Ho
party
is a visualization of male-female interaction which makes it easier to slip
into exploitative behavior.  E.g., I think Jesus has a line about "if your
eye leads you into bad behavior, pluck it out!", and something about how
looking with lust amounts to adultery in the heart.
2.    Exploitative behavior tends to diminish expectations of mutual
respect.  Mutual respect is very important in the modern world of
distributed
decision making which Tom Peters, Thomas Friedman, etc. have described.  A
lack of mutual respect can lead to noise in the system, increased
transaction
costs, lost opportunities.
3.    Historical perspective might support this.  The libertine
Cavalier/royalist era in England gave way to the Puritan era of more self
restrained behavior, and the Puritan era emphasized distributed personal
responsibility, which might be viewed as a prelude to modern distributed
decision making in organizations.  In general, when society has recognized
the need to buckle down to a big task, personal behavior has become more
restrained.  The 1920's gave way to the 1930s.  Nowadays big problems await
us like surviving the consumer credit bubble, global warming, and sharing
resources with developing countries.  The Gatsby-like celebrators of the
Pimp-and-Ho parties just haven't recognized that sufficiently yet.
4.    Mutual respect and civility is important not only within an
organization, but also in the wider society, as alliances are made by
consumers, etc., in aid of shared goals.  Tom Friedman, Lexus and Olive Tree
paperback, pages 208, 242.

Don Mayer wrote:

> I agree with Dan that a Pimp and Ho party is not a good thing, and
> I disagree with those who think there's no way to explain ~why~ it's not.
>
> But that still leaves some tough questions, like (1) what would a wise
> administration do to discourage such  events, and (2) what kinds of
> communications from an older generation  (already compromised by an
> apparent absence of moral leadership) would at least cause students
> to think twice about "the fun" and what it all might mean.
>
> I'm at a loss as to (1), though it strikes me that to the extent
> fraternities
> accept some benefits of affiliation from a college or university they
> can surely be asked to keep certain standards.  (But what standards,
> and whose?  Tough questions, easier to avoid, yet it seems to me that
> better and worse answers can be had.)  As to (2), my generation has
> to accept the reality that it is now the younger generation that does
> not want to listen to us, just as we did not wish to listen to an older
> generation intent on making war instead of peace.
>
> And what ~do~ we boomers stand for, not just in the media, but in
> many obvious respects?  Consumerism, self-absorption? Perhaps
> the only sensible response, if you are young, is to laugh at the whole
> sorry parade.  But it is disheartening nonetheless.