Reality TV part 2

Human's love conflict, well some of us do and according to Aristotle there are 16 basic motives. These motives are things like romance, social contact, and honour. We like to connect with those feelings because they make us feel different then our everyday lives, now depending on if you are strong or weak (we'll get to that shortly) will determine which motive you most connect with.

However, we also desires things like power, vengeance and status. The way Aristotle described these 16 motives is that you are either strong or weak in each. For example if you have like a clean house, you probably have a strong desire for order, and notice when a bag is left on the floor or there are a few crumbs on the table. Someone weak in the desire for order wouldn't care if the sink was full of dishes or if there were clothes lying everywhere. Another example is someone who desires social contact will seek out social situations where as someone with a weak desire for social contact won't care who is throwing a party on the weekend. If you put strong and weak profiles together, let's say, on an island in The Pacific, your bound to have sparks fly.

Survivor manipulated these motives the same way a hooker does, by playing into everyones strong and weak desires. Candy-Lynn, who works the North East corner of my block not only has great legs but also a keen interest in psychology. This gives her an edge over the other hookers. She's able to fulfill each guy's desire (while they fill her, ah thank you!) by exploiting their strong and weak motives. She knows what he wants and most of the time its not just the act of sex but the whole production of it. Hookers are the modern Shakespeare.

 Let's look back to the first season of Survivor (actually any season will do because the formula is the same, i.e. our desires for strong and weak motives doesn't really change - surprise.) Each season their's  the young beautiful people, the old wise ones, the trouble maker, ,the one everyone likes,  the swindler and the lazy person. You have all these archetypes for both strong and weak personalities confined to a beach and forced to interact. YA! There's going to be conflict alright. However, occasionally a bright spot is seen.

In Survivor All-stars Rob and Amber actually fell in love. Argue with it or not, I have this season on DVD and it's pretty genuine if you look closely. They eventually got married, which was the highlight for those of us who have a strong desire for romance. But, it also set the stage for sacrifice and back stabbing. In the end it was a beautiful romance and very positive now what about those who want to see the exact opposite, which unfortunately is more of us.

Go to Part 3