"Thomas M. Disch - Understanding Human Behavior" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

their weird fears and whopping lies, their endless urges to control other people's behavior, like
the vegetarian cashier at the Stop-and-Shop or the manager at the convenience center. The
lectures and demonstrations at the halfway house had laid out the basics, but without
explaining any of it. Like harried parents, the Institute's staff had said, "Do this," and "Don't do
that," and he'd not been in a position to argue. He did as he was bid, and his behavior fit as
naturally as an old suit.

His name -- the name by which he'd christened his new self before erasure -- was Richard
Roe, and that seemed to fit too.

II
At the end of September, three months after coming to Boulder, Richard signed up for a
course in Consumership: Theory and Practice at the Naropa Adult Education Center. There
were twelve other students in the class, all with the dewy, slightly vulnerable look of recent
erasure. They sat in their folding chairs, reading or just blank, waiting for the teacher, who
arrived ten minutes late, out of breath and gasping apologies. Professor Astor. While she was
still collecting punchcards and handing out flimsy Xeroxes of their reading list, she started
lecturing to them. Before she could get his card (he'd chosen a seat in the farthest row back)
she was distracted by the need to list on the blackboard the three reasons that people wear
clothing, which are:

Utility,

Communication, and

Self-Concept.

Utility was obvious and didn't need going into, while Self-Concept was really a sub-category
of Communication, a kind of closed-circuit transmission between oneself and a mirror.

"Now, to illustrate the three basic aspects of Communication, I have some slides." She sat
down behind the A/V console at the front of the room and fussed with the buttons anxiously,
muttering encouragements to herself. Since the question was there in the air, he wondered
what her black dress was supposed to be communicating. It was a wooly, baggy, practical
dress, sprinkled with dandruff and gathered loosely about the middle by a wide belt of cracked
patent leather. The spirit of garage sales hovered about it. "There!" she said.

But the slide that flashed on the screen was a chart illustrating cuts of beef. "Damn," she
said, "that's next week. Well, it doesn't matter. I'll write it on the board."

When she stood up and turned around, it seemed clear that one of the utilitarian functions of
her dress was to disguise or obfuscate some twenty-plus pounds of excess baggage. A jumble
of thin bracelets jingled as she wrote on the board:

Desire,

Admiration,

Solidarity.