* CITY LINES

(Interaction in the city means that there MAY be involvement with someone else. Did you see anyone at the mall? Nope. You really did see hundreds of strangers. There is a friendly distance. That means there are many people in a limited space. They all are not known to you.)

INTRODUCTION

Jeff Miller left a farm near Calverton. His dog Lassie would remain on the farm with a new family. Gramps had just died and his mother was going to remarry.

A new family would take over the farm. There was Mom and Dad, Timmy, and Lassie. I was sitting in the back seat of 1952 Buick. We drove back from Fort Sill, Oklahoma to Omaha Nebraska. Every time we drove into a new television market, I would buy a TV Guide. In it was a description of the end of Jeff and his life on various stations.

I ultimately watched the end on WOW- TV. Jeff had tears in his eyes and Lassie made mournful sounds. It was an end of an era.

I was crying. A dear friend was going to leave my life. The year was the autumn of 1957. I was 14 years old and crying was certainly not manly, so my tears were hidden.

My next best friend lived one block away down the 58^th St. alley. Jeff was gone, but not dead. He had just moved away.

Jeff’s real name was Tommy Retting and mom was Jan Clayton. Gramps was George Cleveland. All were gone, but they were never there. The family did not exist. Calverton was not on the map. Lassie was a series of male dogs.

I was a skinny little kid. I did my homework and attended junior high with about 2500 other kids. It was big and impersonal. I admired the teachers, although life was tough. One could be beaten and thrown around by the teachers.

What happened to Lassie? Well, Jeff and Lassie never existed. They came from nothing and returned to the files of the studio. Although I “knew” Jeff, he disappeared. Welcome to GESELLSCHAFT. People live together, but on whole they don’t know each other.

Before we move on, let me tell you that the student body was all white. There were two Asians and one bi-racial black who was an honor student.

You know, we are going to have long talks about living in a city where no one knows anyone. You may wave at a neighbor, but really not know them.

However, I have lived in the country in a winterized cabin, small town, suburb, and the city. Please, let me tell you about a lot of neighborhoods where no one really knows anyone else.

You want to be where everyone knows your name.  That’s a bar. They still don’t know your name and you probably will not ever be in the bar. All the lonely people where do they belong? Perhaps, they could meet with other lonely folks at Sgt.Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band. Most everything words described cannot be real. When they feel real, we return to a special nothing that is broadcasted all over the country.

So please come with me. I am going on a path filled with contradictions that we crave.

LOOKING BACK WITH LOVE

I was talking with Mike Love of the Beach Boys, a 60 year old international band. I was tense because Michael has a bit of a temper. However, he is the hardest worker in the group. He has a few social skills struggles that can be a problem, but on the whole, he appears to be on a stage somewhere when nearly all the other members of the group are gone.

I talked to him about spending 20 years compiling a Smiley Smile tape that would be commercially successful.  I also had already changed the words of “She’s Goin’ Bald “to “She’s Off the Wall.” His eyes began to glaze and so I asked about the current tour.  I first heard about them at a party when I was an undergrad and had stuck with them since then.

I said that I liked his individual albums and I thought that Dennis Wilson would be hard to travel with. By the way, I asked what was Charlie Manson like?   He said that that he only met him once. Charlie was a roommate of Dennis for a couple of months.

 The conversation ended abruptly when Brian and Al Jardine came in. I said hello and quickly ended the conversation. I was just talking to myself in the middle of a crowded nowhere.

What happened?  Quickly, I had changed my time, location, and level of consciousness. Nothing layered itself into nothing. I don’t know Mike, Brian, or Al. I tried to follow the rules of social propriety in the realm of nothingness. I was just thinking, but not out loud.

I know about as much of the preceding as I do most of everything else. My outward behavior was acceptable in a setting like sitting in a bus where a few people may know your name, but they know nothing about you. This is the wonders of Gesellschaft where nobody really knows anybody.

CALVERTON

Villages, small towns, and related are called Geminschaft. Not only do folks know your name, but they went to school with you since first grade. These places are not suburbs or exurban little cities put together by developers. They may be dying or absorbed by cities, but many people have lived in these small places all their life.

What happens Thursday night, most know about it on Friday. At one time, the United States was composed of such villages all over the country. Nostalgic stories are placed in these settings. There is a community oriented flavor to it.

Some really talented people who will go on to be famous and/or rich leave these places for the big city. A number of small towns with resources are overcome by huge corporations and cherry picked for all that the little town can give.

Millions of people like to read and watch stories about people in small towns. People know your name and a lot about you. Pleasantville was a movie where a little city was caught up in its own bubble. Beyond a certain street the world ended. Most citizens gradually became aware of their sexual feelings that would change the town.

Small villages can get old and have a church, school, minimart, and a tavern. We lived in a vibrant small town near a big city. Later, we moved to a rural area on the Missouri. When we lived in Cottonwood, there were ten cottages and I knew everyone. They did not know us very well because on week-ends, we traveled 18 miles and got lost in a big city. We visited with my wife’s large family and their home.

We also lived in the poorest part of the little city mentioned above. We shared a house with a couple that had two children. Although the house was divided, you could hear them all the time. There was a general cycle between the two adults. She continued to nag and then he would hit her very hard . You could hear the thud.  At a later time when we left our little cottage, that was the end of small places. I had a dream where all kinds of family and friends (living and dead) said good bye.

The promise of this little book is NOT to talk about gemeinschaft. So we end here and head for the city.

RAPIDS CITY

We lived in a city with all the virtues and vices of other middle size cities. Gellsellschaft are fairly large and filled with neighborhoods. Our home was in Cedar Hills. We remained “friends” with one couple for years. Both their house and the one that we lived in have become treeless. There was a big wind that killed 7O percent of the trees.

Later in life, when we lived in the woods on top of the city sometimes I would talk for hours with a friend in Omaha. He was Charlie Bercaw. He was a smoker and he did what other smokers do. He died about a decade ago before he should have. So? Well he was a neighbor to one of the richest men in the world. So we have set the table to get ready for Gesellschaft. These are places where you really don’t know anyone, and you feel at home when the bus stops in your neighborhood. Everyone is tied together by contract. You may even carry a gun.

ROSEHILL

Warren Buffet and I (15 years later) went to the same elementary school called Rose Hill. Buffett lived next to Charlie in a house that cost 31,500  dollars. He went to Rose Hill and his Mom and Dad ran a special grocery store. It had rough hewn wood all over the store. They also delivered groceries to folks who were financially comfortable. His father was our Congressman.

Warren was a member of the RCC. That was a group of classmates that help other students open the doors and cross the streets at Rose Hill.

He graduated in his 8^th grade at Rose Hill and became a freshman at Central High School which was located roughly in the downtown area. His kids also went there. At Rose Hill, he was president of his class. His favorite book was How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie. This is a great book for the world of Gesellschaft.

Warren drove a used Cadillac car and he gave it a funny name. His favorite activity was to sit in the small living room with his sweat pants on and watch the Nebraska Huskers football team. Although he lived frugally, we want to start with Warren (the Oracle of Omaha) because he is at the top of the Gesellschaft world.

DEMOGRAPHICS AND PSYCHOGRAPHICS

Warren is white. His lineage traces back to white settlers who conquered Native Americans. Those folks who came to America wanted more land and resources. They had 3 things that helped take over the land. They are guns, germs, and steel.

Roughly around the world there are 3 geographic areas that would enrich the white folks. Two are the areas of United States, Canada, and the third is Europe.

Most Europeans believed that a sewer system filled with waste would soon evaporate and discharge into drinkable water. Native Americans used honey buckets and spread refuse in the fields. Water was okay. The Europeans were wrong. The drinkable water was filled with diseases.

There were times when the Europeans would infect the indigenous because the whites were immune (drinking sewer water) to many diseases so there was vast and rapid die offs of the natives.

MALES

Warren is a male. Males can be a problem around 16 to 23. For the most part all the CEO’s of business and everything else is run by males. They beat and kill each other. They provide excellent security on the other hand, as they age out. They don’t say much to each other and die earlier than females.

You know the good things about them, so we’ll leave it at that.  But most folks when they are older fear groups of twenty something males. They should fear them because regardless of race and class, they end up in violence. There should be a special purgatory for males who carry sperm and deposit it in a single female. Then they run. In this life, they at least deserve a vasectomy. Again, both females and males like females much better.

Warren is a male. A lot people can beat up Warren. However, there are three types of interactions. Dominance is where folks can really beat him up.   Authority means that he carries a special prestige and significance like the Pope. A lot of people can beat up the Pope. So the last is what makes Warren special. He has power and can hire a lot of people to help him in a fight. There are domestic terrorists that might kill him, but the security is ready.

At many gatherings, people flock to people who have power. They want to talk to Mr. Buffet. Around Warren are security people who can fight against the fight. They look like other people but they are strong, fast, and carry weapons.

At any rate, polls indicate that males don’t trust other males. Females don’t like them and both sexes prefer females.

History is filled with mentally ill males who crave power. They fight each other through thousands of male soldiers. Where are they? They are hiding in bunkers.

Let’s say Warren is much younger but very rich. He is also not married. He comes to call on your daughter. What do you think? Other than a pre-nuptial, he is just a wonderful guy.

Gesellschaft is filled with males. Most are fine, but some need to be rehoused in an institution.

SOCIAL CLASS

Warren is rich. By how a person dresses, you can guess their social class. Again, Buffet wears suits that are very nice, but they don’t glow in the dark.

Buffet pays his taxes, but most rich do not do that.

It is something like 8%, President Trump paid 750 dollars. One tenth of one percent own 90 percent of the wealth in America. In terms of income the mean is 1.2 million dollars a year. They belong to watering holes like Bohemian Groves and other hidden clubs.

The USA has the most unequal distribution of income of all western democracies.

Warren usually wears a gray 3 piece pinstripe suit. He wears a regimental tie and wingtip shoes. So he looks like a billionaire, but not too flashy. This is called Impression Management and he looks the part for a gesellschaft society and its front stage.

All societies need to accomplish their goals, make the necessary changes, keep in touch with each other, and have some kind of order. Buffett knows the city and helps maintains it. This is called systems theory.

However, there is more, the social economic system is made up of oligarchies. That means there are many soda companies, but 3 or 4 have most of the capital. There appears that there is an iron law about a few over the many. Further, Coca Cola is one of the big ones. Warren owns and drinks one of his properties. If you are not sure who owns and dominate a group or society, think Pareto’s Ratio. About 2 out of 10 make the most.

There are some complexities in the city, like the tornado in 1975. Did Warren see anyone when driving to work? No. However a few people saw him. Everyone was driving or walking and they didn’t recognize each other. That is gesellschaft. At work they know a little bit more about Warren.

That tornado was caused by a small wind change in Topeka. That little wind twist created a great deal of chaos in the city of Omaha. (complexity theory.)

Once he is in his office, he answered a Zoom call from the President of the United States. The question dealt with the change in markets in South America. Warren had read something the night before on an e-mail publication. The prediction was very bad, Warren Buffett held back. He had seen this before. The president thanked him.

By noon he was hungry and drove out to the Omaha Country Club. His waitress was designated for only him she was a nice lady from Guatemala. She brought him his favorite. After lunch, he took a quick nap and watched the market at his office.

Sir Paul McCartney came in the door and they walked around the neighborhood of the Dundee business district. Sir Paul is a bit more famous, but lost a lot money to his second wife. He did not create a prenuptial in case McCartney had bad luck. So, McCartney had bad luck.

Buffett was fine and McCartney improved his financial position. All along security surrounded the two, but you would not know it.

Fred is in Warren’s company. Fred (Warren’s brother) had some problems so Warren gave him a job with his corporation Fred was a department head for financial futures for Berkshires-Hathaway. Warren surrounded him with competent people so that he would not lose a lot of money. Further, with title inflation, Fred became a Vice President. Fred’s name would be just under Warren’s name on all outgoing stationary.

Warren is part of the new rich. His mother and father were upper middle class. So jumping to the top is new rich. Many of their kids spend money very rapidly and disappear into the masses. They are generally called legacy and they go to top schools and take easy classes.

If the family stays at the top for 3 generations, they become old rich. Rockefellers, Du Ponts, Kennedys are part of this group.

The new and old rich know each other, but usually don’t associate with each other.  The top send their kids to those schools that are small and tell their children to go incognito. They can easily be kidnapped. They may take classes under a phony name, although their degree has their proper name.

In some ways the rich are a troubled class. Their problems usually don’t compare with anxious middle income and /or the poor. However, who are they to trust? In the last 50 years, the gap between the top and everyone else has greatly increased. So the masses are not necessarily fond of them. Kids can be trouble or as mentioned earlier kidnapped. If they get rich fast, they lose their old friends. Everyone wants money from them including the extended family, friends, strangers, phony charities. The spouse is getting older, how about a series of new folks as lovers. You can be depressed by over choice. That means that you can easily have 10 mansions. You can also be overcharged. You may be surrounded by jealous people. Who do you trust to deal with your money?  Do you get enough sleep?

Choices that you make improve or destroy thousands of peoples’ lifes.

UPPER MIDDLE CLASS

These have bachelor, masters or doctorates and most are salaried professionals. The kids go to good schools including public schools. They have wonderful titles and live in those bricks homes that connote wealth. Both mates work in the professions and they usually have a busy life. The super rich may know them and the upper middle class usually work for them. They pay thousands of dollars for college and drive wonderful cars. Vacations are by plane.

THE LOWER MIDDLE CLASS

The folks live in neat appearing smaller homes. They are involved in clerical and border managerial jobs. That means they probably live in a house that is well maintained. They work inside and they have at least an AA degree. Their skills vary, but they know what their responsibilities are.

Paper, files, computer, zoom, phones, and an open ended office are their work. They are generally very good citizens and attend a mainstream Protestant church. They read the local newspaper. They liked to go to the same resort every year. It is not far away and the cost is modest. You want them as neighbors.

WORKING CLASS

They often work outside. That means very cold to super hot weather.  They have many skills and again, they have may have an AA degree. Life is tough. They look older because of the difficult work that they are involved in. They are culturally conservative and make up societies’ soldiers. Without wanting to they vote against themselves. That means they vote on social issues that are conservative, but they must pay more as the conservative party is in power and get money to the rich.

Sometimes they go to the tavern. They know that they should order a drink, but continually look at the bartender or look down at their lap. They don’t want to catch the eye of someone else or it looks like a fight is about to happen. Nearly all belonged to a Union, but “Right to Work” laws killed them off.

They attend Roman Catholic or Evangelical Churches.

They may be married and have too many children. So money is tight.  Tough is tough. They look and act it.

POOR

There is a single Mom with a number of children. She works in a factory and the next door neighbor takes care of the kids. The most street crime is here. Dad is somewhere else. They live day to day. Some stable couples live in the house with a strong two door front and bars on the windows. If there are gun shots, they know to hit the floor. The neighborhood is not maintained. They rarely go out. They often see the police. They have formed a bond with the police, because if they can, they tell law enforcement about the gangs or a violent family.

The grocery store sells junk food and some staples. They would like to go to church, but they stay home and watch an evangelist on television.

There are a number of house fires. One can hear gun shots at night.

BORGADUS SOCIAL DISTANCE SCALE

Big cities generally have a salad like composition of ethnic groups. There are so many groups that often they live together in a neighborhood. Buffett lives in a predominant WASP / JEWISH neighborhood. The largest group in the USA is German. The Pentagon welcomed many Germans who were our enemies into the country after World War II so they could use their talents. Most Americans don’t know that and less is said.

However after Germans, are Hispanics, Irish, and folks who say they are Americans.

Blacks are no longer Black, but many colors including White appearing individuals (6 million)

Given his color, Buffet would be welcomed into the country.  With the Borgadus Scale an individual is ranked from top and faraway to bottom where one feels close like the family. In the overall scheme of things Buffet as a character is at the very top.

All of this is deduction. Those who are way at the top vary from the reader. Those who are brown and tan are really not welcomed and the border is being built to keep them out.

So Warren is welcomed in the USA. He has some degrees in business and finance so he is tolerated if not honored among others who have those skills.

How would you like to be his neighbor? Remember the neighbor Charlie Bercaw? He liked Warren as Buffet really keeps up his $35,000 house.

The man also belongs to the most exclusive country club in the city, and of course you would say yes to a man like Warren to be part of your family. He might lend you some money to upscale your garage so that you have more room.

So the Borgadus scale goes from letting one into your country right down to the living in your family.

So deductively we march further down inside Buffet.

LEVEL OF INDIVIDUAL AWARENESS

 CONSCIOUSNESS

There are over 330,000,000 people in the USA. Buffet is one and was awake and thought back to the acid article by a newspaper that he only gave money to population control. He thought that Paul Ehrlich was right and still does. However a man named Borlaug introduced a new farm product that really extends the amount of a plant so that more people would not starve. Warren thinks that Ehrlich was right in the long run.

Another thought also continued to rush through his mind. How do you pay people to not reproduce? Do women really naturally want kids or are they pressured to have kids?

Why are their some groups where the Dads are gone? Yes, the market can take care some of these things, but there are probably others that need help.

Well there may be something, but he is right in some things. 49 books have been published about him.

He had a flash.  Here he had to turn on Dodge street. His thoughts and awareness changed to what might be a coming economic depression.

Warren is a member of Dundee Presbyterian church, but rarely goes because of the issue of security.

All of these thoughts and more rushed into his conscious. This and he was driving his old Cadillac.

SUBCONSCIOUSNESS

When you are just waking up, something else flashes through your mind. We don’t have a lot of time, so one may have extreme emotion, divergent information, relational information, and repeated actions. Let’s just say that the fog is beginning to disperse.

UNCONSCIOUS

This is the biggest part of the mind. It is full of everything and nothing. There are layers and layers of something like water mist. The further one goes down, the thicker the fog. There may be a Friday night when you were a kid and you were running in the street. There was a big light on so that you could see something. This could go on and on forever. Beneath the unconscious comes the coma.

Warren is 95 and the world will be not as good as is when he is with us. Buffett appears to be a non -greedy man and not a phony in a greedy culture.

The Super Rich are a troubled social class. They have made a great deal of money legally and illegally. Let’s say you own a castle, but you can afford perhaps 20 other castles. You can rent people that are pretty and can provide new and fresh sex. You can wipe out enemies in the market. The press is always watching. Folks who don’t like you melt in your presence. There are security people to talk to when you are bored. With both legal documents and human trust you can tell them anything.

There is always someone to cook for you and clean up after you. There are special meds for your pains. You are bombarded with over choice or cognitive distance. In public you are surrounded by phonies. The second or third wife  are bitter as is the kids.

Buffet is honored for his money making and even more important what he does not do. Other billionaires do things to show the world that they are special. At his death, he will give 85% of his money to a philanthropic organization.

And so it goes. Where to now St. Peter? Thanks Warren.

GASELLSCHAFT CHRONICLES

The Following books are similar to what this author said. They are not necessarily references, but they are profound similarities.

SLATER/ PURSUIT OF LONELINESS

Americans continue to strive for loneliness without realizing it. The culture is filled technology and social change that make individual enough money to remove themselves from the greater society of strangers. The book is too idealistic at the end. It was written some 50 years ago before the Reagan-Trump onslaught. The pragmatic aspects are the idea that extremes from strict comradeship to super individualism are both off the mark. Humans are in the middle (interdependent.) Loneliness comes from the ability to live alone in one’s own treasure and communication by electronic media.

PUTNAM/BOWLING ALONE

From 1960 onward, Gesellschaft meant a place where American citizens in masses hid in their homes. Putnam reviews nearly every measure in which some variable may divide people up and put them back home. The major triggers are time and money, suburbanization, generation of silent ones, and the biggest one is television. Really it is a collection of electronic technological brothers that does the job of segmenting us. One can have a long term relationship of years of contact and never see or touch a good friend. One may grieve another’s death and not attend a ceremony.

Long talks on the phone are a way to stay in touch, but the touch is never delivered.

MEYER/WHY WE HATE US

We live in the land of the FAKE. So many social and technological forces help us hide ourselves to others. Further the overall country has soured psychological, physically, socially. Television and its electronic brothers spread meta-hate. Special organizations gather propaganda for those that govern.

Surprisingly, there are so many values that we share in spite of the media. We are divided by the electronic giants that find conflict more saleable than harmony. The cell phone invades a good talk with another. Commercials are real jaw breakers.

TOFFLER/FUTURE SHOCK

Rapid change breaks us up. Corporations come together and tear themselves apart. In the mean time, citizens chase after jobs. So there are many jobs and many homes. A couple that lives in the same house for many years is indeed a rarity.

ORENSTEIN /GIRLS & SEX/ ORENSTEIN/BOYS& SEX

A Good night kiss is now oral sex. A fast pace, drug induced time a couple spends together is that they wallow in toxic masculinity. Avoid the second floor of a fraternity house. Stay away from an athlete. Biology pushes the two together, the social norms makes a night of near rape. Of course, both are strangers to each other.

WARTZMAN/ END OF LOYALTY

Previous to the Covid pandemic, jobs were more likely to be gig or temporary. Half the workers had low paying jobs and the trend appears to be an even more downward trend. This happened from the last year of the 50’s to 60’s and onward. So we are working with less and Bowling Alone.

PUTNEY AND PUTNEY/ NORMAL NEUROSIS-THE ADJUSTED AMERICAN

Other than FUTURE SHOCK, most of the books reviewed here are recent. Our house is filled with books about many topics, but especially social life.

Many could have been included except this one started my wife and I on the road to reading about humans and society. This may be the book that wraps things up. Gesellschaft is generally non-nurturing, but very necessary contractually. So a youngster learns quite early about all kinds of strangers and how to cope. The downward side to life is indirect self acceptance. One learns that if they can win over another, then they can like themselves. The strategy is exhausting and unhealthy.

The Putney’s attempt is to look at every aspects of everyday life. Experts finally came to the conclusion that conformity is not the issue. Nearly every society has some form of conformity for it to exist. The book was published in 1964. Since then, so many other problems have emerged that this issue is like an interactional fog that layers itself over so many other problems.

The important issue is to ask one “why am I doing this?” Perhaps there are many answers.

Finis

CITY LINES* is the title of this book. It was also the name of an alleged conspiracy to get trolleys off the streets and sell more cars. The corporation that makes rubber and another that makes cars infiltrated city councils to develop transportation where a middle class family would need two cars to live in the suburbs. There is an article in Google in which this conspiracy is reputed.

The metaphor is that little villages may not have this problem. Good question. Big corporations subtly guide us like the trolley to the bus as an example. The street car is no longer called “Desire.” We are going somewhere else.

Joel Charles Snell MA*(Ret)

Emeritus Professor

Sociology/Psychology