Seinfeld Ethnography (44)—George's Tip Jar

Click here for an introduction to the Round and Square series Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific.

[a] Tipster RF

Click below for all "Seinfeld Ethnography" posts: 

George Eats Trash     No Soup for You     Elaine Exclaims    The Puffy Shirt    Poppie's Pizza     Mr. Bookman

Marine Biologist         The Doorman          Opposite George   Newman's Mail   The Bootleg         Marriage
Just Dessert               Sleep Desk             Late Coffee            High Stakes        Motor Oil              Downtown 
Code Cracking           Nonfat Yogurt          Bad Boy                 It's Not You         I Can't Be...          Exploding Wallet
Elaine Flies Coach    The Close Talker     The Alliance           Broccoli               Coated Culture    Dinner Party
George's Friend        Jerry's Haircut          Face Paint             Mustachioed       Smoking              East River
Pool Man                   Dunkin' Joe              Life Lessons          Reckoning          Dog Medicine      Shower Heads
Looking Busy            George Tips             Kramer's Job          Empty Tank
Click here for the reference to the "Argonauts" title, below.

Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific

Historical contingency. That's what I want to think about today. And authenticity...well, and doing it over. You see, George wants to make sure that his dollar is seen as it goes into the tip jar. This is not a new issue—for George or for us. By chance (historical contingency), the guy behind the counter looks away and attends to other business just as the bill goes in.  I must say that I am amazed how often this happens in "real life," but that is another issue for another time. The real issue here, it seems to me, is that George tries to hit the ol' reset button on this little fragment of structural negotiation—this tiny event in a big, confusing world. Take a look at George's travails, and think about how you might handle the situation. If it hasn't happened to you yet...it will.

George's Tip Jar 0:36

[b] Chance RF

I have had this theme lined up for weeks, but chance would have it that a similar situation occurred for me today. I ordered my coffee and the proprietor turned to prepare it just as I was putting a dollar in the bowl. As more chance would have it (chance and structures often intersect, you see), I had not released the bill yet. Daring not pull back on my forward motion (putting it back in my pocket only to "tip" again seemed ridiculous on an almost Costanza level), I set it on the tip bowl in a way that would make the new bill hard to miss. When it was all over—the whole "event" took several seconds—I felt silly for the obvious "look, I gave you a tip" angle of the bill. Having watched George's tip clip, though, I let it be.

George has taught us that the sanctity of the tip jar's inner bowl must never be violated.

But enough about me. Maybe it is just George and Rob who seem to tip just as others are turning their attentions elsewhere. I am intrigued above all by the role of chance in the whole cultural encounter, and the expectation of the giver that the receiver will notice. George is just a little too obvious, of course, and way too concerned with his lost opportunity. Still, attentions are fickle, and "our" investment in the tip-giving may not be at all equal to the tip-receiver's. In fact, as I have pointed out before on these pages, acknowledgment creates its own kind of awkward moment.

[c] Tips RF

So, what readings will we tackle today as we think about fate, luck, and contingency? Since I am in northern Virginia right now, and do not have access to my full library, I cannot pick out the readings that would be my obvious choices (Martha Nussbaum's work, among them). On the other hand, that is part of the fun of these weekly posts for me. I get to think about our themes in ways that might not have been apparent to me if my library selection had been wider. Consider it a kind of bibliographical bricolage, and let's have some fun contrasting George's moment with history, philosophy, and cultural theory.

We start with T.S. Eliot's opening lines from Burnt Norton—some of the most prescient words ever written about time and chance. We then take a detour to Darwin, and Louis Menand's discussion of chance in natural selection from his fine book, The Metaphysical Club. We conclude with one of my favorite books, and an odd discussion (given our study of George) of learning. Just imagine George in the various learning environments Bateson offers. If you really imagine George under those learning conditions, it can be great fun.

[d] Possibility ADV

Burnt Norton
T.S. Eliot (1943)
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in times past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
                               But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.[1]

[e] Finch fate ADV

Chance and Natural Selection
Louis Menand (2004)

Darwin thought that variations do not arise because organisms need them (which is essentially what Larmarck had argued). He thought that variations occur by chance, and that chance determines their adaptive utility. In all seasons it happens that some finches are born with marginally longer and narrower beaks than others, just as children of the same parents are not all exactly the same height. In certain environmental conditions, a narrower beak may have a positive or negative survival value, but in other conditions—for example, when seeds are plentiful and finches are few—it may make no difference. The "selection" of favorable characteristics is therefore neither designed nor progressive. NO intelligence, divine or otherwise, determines in advance the relative value of individual variations, and there is no ideal type of "finch," or essence of "finchness," toward which adaptive changes are leading...

A way of thinking that regards individual differences as inessential departures from a general type is therefore not well suited for dealing with the general world. A general type is fixed, determinate, and uniform; the world Darwin described is characterized by chance, change, and difference—all the attributes general types are designed to leave out.[2]

[f] Apperception ADV

Contexts of Positive Learning
Gregory Bateson (1942)

Most profitably, I believe, we can combine the insights of the experimental psychologists with those of the anthropologists, taking the contexts of experimental learning in the laboratory and asking of each what sort of apperceptive habit we should expect to find associated with it; then looking around the world for human cultures in which this habit has been developed. Inversely, we may be able to get a more definite—more operational—definition of such habits as "free will" if we ask about each, "What sort of experimental learning context would we devise in order to inculcate this habit?" How would we rig the maze or problem-box so that the anthropomorphic rat shall obtain a repeated and reinforced impression of his own free will?"

The classification of contexts of experimental learning is as yet very incomplete, but certain definite advances have been made. It is possible to classify the principal contexts of positive learning (as distinct from negative learning or inhibition, learning not to do things) under four heads, as follows:
     (1) Classical Pavlovian contexts
     These are characterized by a rigid time sequence in which the conditioned stimulus (e.g., buzzer) always recedes the unconditioned stimulus (e.g., meat powder) by a fixed interval of time. This rigid sequence of events is not altered by anything that the animal may do. In these contexts, the animal learns to respond to the conditioned stimulus with behavior (e.g., salivation) which was formerly evoked only by the unconditioned stimulus.
     (2) Contexts of instrumental reward or escape
     These are characterized by a sequence which depends upon the animal's behavior. The unconditioned stimulus in these contexts is usually vague (e.g., the whole sum of circumstances in which the animal is put, the problem-box) and may be internal to the animal (e.g., hunger). If an when, under these circumstances, the animal performs some act within its behavioral repertoire and previously selected by the experimenter (e.g., lifts its leg), it is immediately rewarded.
     (3) Contexts of instrumental avoidance
     These are also characterized by a conditional sequence. The unconditioned stimulus is usually definite (e.g., a warning buzzer) and this is followed by an unpleasant experience (e.g., electric shock) unless in the interval the animal performs some selected act (e.g., lifts leg).
     (4) Contexts of serial and rote learning
     These are characterized by the predominant conditioned stimulus being an act of the subject. He learns, for example, always to give the conditioned response (nonsense syllable B) after he has himself uttered the conditioned stimulus (nonsense syllable A).

This small beginning of a classification will be sufficient to illustrate the principles with which we are concerned and we can now go on to ask about the occurrence of the appropriate apperceptive habits among men of various cultures...[3]

Notes

[1] T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1971), 13.

[2] Louis Menand, The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2001), 122-123.

[3] Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), 170-173.

Bibliography

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. 
Eliot, T.S. Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1971.

Menand, Louis. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 2001.

NEXT

Wednesday, March 28th
Kramer Gets a Job

No, really. Kramer works his way up from the bathroom to the board room. Long story. See you next week on Argonauts of the Seinfeldian Specific