Game theory and economics

Being the Princeton psychic along Nassau Street is a no-brainer. "You are going to work at Merrill Lynch." "You come from a privileged background." "She'll sleep with you when she's drunk."

It's a wonder the Princeton psychic still exists, considering Burger King couldn't survive the dog-eat-dog price wars of Nassau Street (despite hiring the poorest minority workers, or so I hear). Then again, who wants to eat at Burger King when one can dine in style and preserve the great tradition of the eating clubs?

The eating clubs offer a unique experience in Princeton found at no other university. One of the last vestiges of solidarity among the elite, the rich and the beautiful, the tradition of eating clubs goes far back in time, even beyond the hallowed walls of Princeton. After all, did the French Revolution not begin in the exquisite salons of the intellectuals who discussed democracy and the evils of tyranny? Such are the intellectual foundations of the eating clubs, except for the bit about scintillating discussions. Instead, perhaps visitors might prefer to relax while sipping an exotic drink containing vodka brewed from dead grandparents. Or visitors might prefer to throw up on the floor! But don't forget to save some bile for the dormitories! Back to the great tradition of the eating clubs. Let's not get carried away.

Indeed, who can resist the lure of exclusivity afforded by the eating clubs? The eating clubs are classic oligopolies in the style of the great oil and steel magnates, and these are important economic lessons that must be learned. In addition to functioning as places to do drugs and have impromptu sex, eating clubs effectively insulate the population from a normal existence outside of an artificial community. That's right, Princeton undergrads just don't mingle with normal people! Why are there so few choices for eating on Nassau Street? Why are there hardly any proper bars? And why are all the people in the cafés strange, balding grad students?

One such grad student once lamented that Princeton was full of students who wmerely use it as a steppingstone to work for big financial companies. (I hear that grad students are weird. I hear that philosophy grad students chain smoke depressively at the D-bar. They clearly lack the kind of Pavlovian conditioning that attending an eating club in their college days would have graciously instilled in them.) That's fine by me. We should be proud of our heritage as the gateway to exciting, laudable lives as I-bankers. Princeton as an intellectual community? Who cares about that kind of old-school, Jude-the-Obscure nonsense?

Yes, there are a handful of intellectuals on campus, but only a few of them are undergrads. Princeton for many is a series of games with family resemblances — a drinking game, a game of social climbing, a game of sex and beer — with the unwanted child of intellect sitting in the corner. Its incestuous and commodious recirculation of privileged kids in a hedonistic orgy of self-love is, like Finnegan's Wake, incomprehensible but to an elite few (that's us). The unseen intellectuals, upon whom much of the University's reputation depends, dolefully buy earplugs because they know that party animals are going to come barking and snorting by their window at night. As though possessed by the spirit of Gandhi, they eschew the eating clubs in a sort of pointless hunger strike. They are a herd of ascetic pariahs, living in a kind of loser's club with likewise outcast friends. Such fools!

It's a delicate balance between the really cool kids and the intelligent people in Princeton, much like the way the black kids with enough street creed camp out in Frist while the Asian nerds congregate in Fischer library. Or like the way the LGBT society is mostly composed of "allies," because it's not respectable to be flaming. Then again, who cares? That's the way things have been for years. Always remember: tradition justifies everything. And the idea that tradition justifies everything is itself justified by tradition. And the idea that tradition justifies the idea that tradition justifies everything is itself justified by tradition. Johann Loh is a freshman from Singapore. He can be reached at loh@princeton.edu.