Larger-than-life personalities…
Do you turn news programs off when they start up with “pop news”? Do you look at the magazines at the supermarket checkout with disgust? Are you tired of paparazzi pursuing cult figures, and cult figures smacking around the paparazzi? Are you fed up with the media turning killers into cult figures? My answer to these questions is yes. Maybe ordinary people’s lives are just so damn boring and dull that they become fascinated with personalities. As a result, some become so larger-than-life from the media’s snowball effect that it always amuses me. While part of human nature, following this seems a poor investment for a person’s time, though.
The Clintons, that shining example of marital bliss and fidelity, are having a grandchild. Whoopee! The media immediately creates the question, will this affect Hillary’s decision to run for president? I don’t care. You shouldn’t either. But let’s hope her decision is made independently, weighing considerations that actually have something to do with a presidential run. George Clooney, that shining example of liberal and progressive Hollywood thought, just tied the knot. Given the fact that the wedding was estimated to have cost $13 million, it would seem that an elopement was in order so that the money could be better spent on his innumerable causes. The one-percenters who get rich and then become do-gooders—the Clintons and the Clooneys are but two examples—make me suspicious. They do their do-gooding after they become rich and famous. Much appreciated, but why should Clinton’s Global Initiative or Clooney’s charity work and causes receive any more media attention than ordinary people’s where they’re working for charities like food banks and soup kitchens or taking up causes like campaigns to preserve the environment or stop global warming?
Sure, the media can bring worthy causes to the public’s attention. But the fact that these larger-than-life personalities so often use their good works as simple PR and marketing makes my head spin. I suppose I should look beyond that, taking the charity work as the cause and the PR and marketing success as an effect, but it all smacks of hypocrisy. It’s like the Vatican with its art treasures. There is a Catholic tradition in support of a life of poverty and service (for example, the life of St. Francis), but the pomp and circumstance at ceremonies in Vatican square even make the British monarchy look Franciscan. Speaking of those humble British monarchs, does it seem contradictory to anyone else that they are out and about supporting their pet charities when they live like parasites off the poor British taxpayer? These larger-than-life personalities—politicos, Popes, queens and kings, Hollywood stars, and athletic heroes—always seem cloaked in contradiction.
Derek Jeter? He’s a nice guy. Compared to A-Rod, Derek is a healthy role model for kids everywhere. I can’t deny that, even if I’m a Red Sox fan. In this case, I don’t blame him for the hypocrisy. I blame the people who waited until he retired to donate to his charity. He was always quiet about his charity, just doing his thing. Again, the PR and marketing was attained by using the great player’s name. Derek doesn’t need any more fame or respect, but there’s a whole crowd trying to bask in his shadow—steal some karma, as it were. That $222,222 check—a play on his number—was over the top. Pure show. Derek will take it, I’m sure, and see that it’s used wisely, but he’s got to wonder at the self-serving hypocrisy. I do.
Larger-than-life personalities often become cult heroes. Slenderman isn’t a real person, but Charles Manson is. I wonder how many marriage offers he’s received. Pursue the study of six-sigma variations in beliefs and causes in any direction of human behavior long enough and you’ll often find larger-than-life personalities lurking around. For every person basking in Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame, there are thousands of groupies waiting in line and hoping to share some of the limelight. This isn’t something that evolution has forced on us. In fact, it doesn’t seem to offer any survival benefits at all, unless crushing, killing crowds means more food for others in some Malthusian scheme of things.
Why do we do it? Because the human mind is bigger than its evolutionary history. Evolution created tribalism, the need for a common culture. It didn’t create a need for larger-than-life personalities. I suppose that in hunter-gatherer times the Og, the bloke who brought down the biggest game animal, was a version of a larger-than-life personality within his own tribe, but we’ve gone far beyond that. We love these personalities even though they mean little to our ordinary lives. Considering that most of them earned their fame via media only too happy to focus on them, you have to wonder if it isn’t all a plot just to distract us from the trials and tribulations of our hum-drum lives. Sports and sports figures certainly do that. The Queen and her band of parasites certainly do that for the Brits. The Pope does that for millions of Catholics worldwide. And a Clinton baby reminds everyone on both sides of the political spectrum that Hillary just might run. Rand Paul or Jeb Bush can’t beat that!
Whether any of this is productive is an interesting sociological question I’m not prepared to answer, but I have my doubts. I’m willing to read your take on all this….
And so it goes….
October 2nd, 2014 at 8:57 am
Re: Charities. I’ve never been real high on donating to the charity that EVERYONE is donating to. I have a few charities that I regularly donate to every year, but they’re more the small, local variety (Free health clinic, some educational things). They need the money, don’t get nearly as much, help my community more directly, use more of the money for actually providing something to those in need. When I see a big push to give to Africa or even something like lung cancer or breast cancer, I usually just write a check to my local food pantry or my local free clinic. And I feel pretty good about it.
I wrote a paper in college about role models after my classmates put up a bunch of “role models”, which, besides their parents, generally included all famous people – names like Carl Sagan, Pope Jean Paul II, Neil Armstrong, the president, some famous actors and authors and athletes. My paper focused on how none of them were truly role models; our role models should come from the people in our lives — teachers, priests, parents or grandparents, friends, those sorts. I got an A+ from my professor! 🙂
October 2nd, 2014 at 9:25 am
Scott,
I’m with you on selecting charities where my money doesn’t go to admin. Remember a few years back when we had a few scandals? Too many “charities” pay solicitors who take their cut. We go local too, even when there’s a national campaign attached.
Your A+ paper is an amusing incident. Perhaps that prof was a role model? I took U.S. history in the summer to free up schedule space my junior year in H.S. I wrote a paper about when the U.S. knew the attack of Japan on Pearl Harbor was imminent (politically and technologically). He disagreed with my tentative conclusions, but gave me an A+ too. Thus began my cynical op-ed writings and his sojourn as my role model for what a teacher should be. He was faculty adviser for the Scribblers, a writing club; the teacher of a special, extra honors class in Humanities; and an avid classical music geek. I introduced him to Carmina Burana, though. Thanks for the memory.
r/Steve
October 2nd, 2014 at 11:07 am
It was a communications class, actually, and I took it to fulfill a core requirement at Loyola. I was a senior; as a chem major who tried to minor in math (couldn’t fit in the last two courses) and had to get my 16 hours of bio (prereq’s for dental school) I didn’t have time to take it earlier. Everyone else in the class was either a freshman or a sophomore. I knew a little more about how to write papers, and how to write, generally, than they did. Easy A. (She wasn’t one of the profs I listed in the paper as a role model, but I did list a couple of people from LU — a philosophy professor and a wing chaplain, though not my wing chaplain, a priest who really was a wonderful man and mentor.)
It’s fun to think back at those good times with good people who became role models.
October 2nd, 2014 at 12:12 pm
Which Loyola? Chicago, New Orleans, or Los Angeles? (Might be some more too. Seems almost like CSI or NCIS!) My Latin American History prof at UCSB was a Jesuit. Really knew his stuff and was a super guy. I was in a QM conference once at LU at NO when a student asked P.A.M. Dirac if he believed in God! Met several Jesuits during my sojourn in Colombia too, all scientists. In our local area, Fordham’s the big Jesuit school. It’s an NYC icon. I can relate to Jesuits better than most priests!
October 6th, 2014 at 9:07 am
Loyola University Chicago. I found most of the Jesuits to be more open minded about all things religious than some of my lay professors…my wife had the same sentiment.