Thursday, September 30, 2010



If you have ever watched the Jersey Shore, you can notice that their way of living is somewhat pleasurable. The jersey shore cast holds employment at a ice cream shop, on this season, that does not require a great deal of effort, in addition, they go to clubs to have fun, the guys go to gym and do their laundry, the girls go get their nails done, they all get together for a Sunday meal and so on. Most of what it's captured on film is more or less the cast having a good time, (of course, criticism aside). The behaviors exhibited by the cast are mostly pleasurable. Let's face it we would all like to live lid that even for a day. Well, maybe not exactly like Jersey Shore. But you can the gist, living a pleasurable life is much better than living with painful events.

The main motivator for such behaviors such as going to the gym, going to the nail salon is to receive self-satisfaction. We can identify with one of these behaviors as being pleasure-seeking. You visit the gym, you get in shape, you feel good, and you feel a sense of satisfaction. Or you go to the nail salon, you get a manicure and pedicure, you look nice, and you feel content with yourself. Bentham's principle and Freud can agree that as humans, seek out and have a high amount pleasure and we all want to avoid pain. These kinds of actions can also be reinforcing to the individual and eventually even be rewarding. Once it becomes pleasurable and reinforcing the motive to how we behave becomes apparent.

Why do humans seek pleasure? They have always done it and always will. It is part of our evolution. Herbert Spencer discussed how pleasure is our means of survival, and with were to eliminate the pleasurable events in our lives we will not survive. So, next time, before you start judging the cast members of the Jersey Shore think behind the motivation for their behaviors, they simply do it because it gives them pleasure. We have all had pleasurable events in our lives where we can't explain why we behave that way. The motive is to seek pleasure, or life would not be the same and just plain painful.

1 comment:

  1. I think people judge the cast of Jersey Shore because although they engage in pleasurable activities, they do things like have sex with random people and women getting drunk and acting unlady like. Not all people would like to live life like they have no responsibilities or like they have no morals. I don't think some people can relate to their wild ways. However, I agree with you that humans seek pleasure over pain any day and some humans are jealous of the fact that they can't live a pleasurable life like the cast, hence their criticism of the show.

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