Well that was quite a weekend. Tiemann, Wyner, Griff, Patten and Kwan came up to Kingston and, as per usual, much debauchery ensued. One might say Saturday Night Debauchery. But anyway, ended up going to the Plaza for the first time in my life and, well, I’ve re-affirmed why I don’t go. First of all, the women aren’t attractive. Secondly, I always feel like I shouldn’t be looking when the girls start spreading their legs in whatnot. I mean, you’re in a social place (a bar) and in any other social situation it’s often considered impolite to look at a girl’s cootch. Finally, it’s totally degrading. I mean, this women is moving in sexual ways and spread eagling and stuff for a bunch of dirtbags just for money. I don’t know, it just seems really gross. But then again, I’m not the type that frequents such establishments. At the same time, I’m not say we ban it or anything. It just not for me. As long as the girls aren’t being coerced or treated really horribly, there’s no real reason why it should be illegal.

On another note, was talking to Greg about how to get out of the Karen situation without looking like a jackass, when she made it nice and easy by sending me an e-mail saying basically what I was thinking. That is, no relationship, but stay on good terms (she said friends but typically we know how that goes.) So that resolved itself nicely.

Alright, enough of my life, more on ideas. The other day I was thinking about how certain people were jackasses and how I wasn’t a jackass and then I realized an interesting point. Most people do not think they’re the jackasses they are. It’s kind of in the same vein of what my mom always says. That is, no one thinks they are doing anything wrong when they do it. They just rationalize it. That is, if I steal from a department store I say to myself, “they’re a big faceless corporation, they don’t need the money.” Or if I were to use someone I would say “well, if they’re stupid enough to be used, so be it.” In fact, the ideas are the same. But it makes you wonder if you’re a big jackass. I guess it all comes back to what society defines as jackassery. It’s the whole relative versus absolute truths thing. So I guess I’m asking: “Is there someone who is absolutely not a jackass, or are they just not a jackass in their given environment?” Personally, I’m mostly on the relative truth train. That is, people are only doing something wrong if society deems that to be wrong. Translation, if a bunch of people, who are in power, think it’s wrong.

And that makes sense. You can try to find absolute truths, but they don’t exist. You realize that something you think you would believe true regardless of upbringing or social situation is in fact only thought of that way because society has made you that way. For instance, if a society existed where X was wrong, then X is wrong if you are a member of that society. Then someone might bring up the idea of how slavery was right around the world and now it’s mostly abolished. But this wasn’t because slavery being wrong was an absolute truth. Instead, it was because a competing society, one that believed slavery was wrong, began to become to dominant society. So I guess the question is, what causes a new society to form?

What does cause a new society to form? Typically when people are learning a concept, it isn’t laid out to them all at once. They have to piece it together from what they hear and see in the people around them, and then periodically ask questions to try and flesh it out. So let’s say a person is learning about slavery. They see the slave working hard and they wonder how much that slave gets paid for such hard work. They are told nothing. Nothing? The learner wonders. But they should be paid something! And so the seeds are planted.

Clearly, I’m GROSSLY oversimplifying and I can think of many cases I haven’t yet considered, but just some food for thought.