The last time that I raised the issue of the "'80s jerk" my explanation of the phenomenon was that in that earlier era of film-making we still had lots of grounded, smaller-scale stories where the stakes are personal rather than galactic and petty meanness or ambition could be significant plot points in movies viewed by large numbers of people.
Yet I can also see a possibility of there being more to the matter than that--reflecting the rightward turn of politics and popular culture in that time. One is a strengthening of the tendency (admittedly, probably always stronger in America than other places in the Western world) to think less in terms of society and the way it is structured and more of individuals, and the obstacle to the hero's realization of their goals as a matter of entirely individual villains. ("It's not the apple barrel that's rotten, just a few bad apples," the conventional always say. Like Sigourney Weaver being all that's really wrong with Wall Street so that Carly Simon sings "Let the river run!" over the end credits to Working Girl.)
Another may be that it was a vehicle of selective bashing of authority--the kind of authority that those skewing rightward did not much like, who tend to be the equal and opposite of the ultraconformist "maverick" the conventional so love. (Thus in libertarian Ivan Reitman's Ghostbusters we see the Environmental Protection Agency presented in a very bad light indeed--in contrast with the protagonists who departed academia for private entrepreneurship who save the day.)
So far as I can tell the essential outlook endures, even as the stories that big movies tend to tell have not.
Saturday, April 20, 2024
The Truth About the Experts and the Public
One of the eternal laments of the centrist ideologue and their media element is that the public did not defer completely to established expertise, while painting those among the public who fail to do so as a pack of anti-intellectual Know-Nothings. The idea that there could be expertise outside the Establishment; that the Establishment's expertise may be significantly flawed; that those non-Establishment experts, and even others, may have a sound, strong, critique of the Establishment; is something they do not, cannot, concede. In particular they can never admit that the professionalization of knowledge has its dangers, especially where the professionals are especially close to and especially watched by the powerful, such that rather than devoting themselves to fact, truth and public service they just tell the powerful what they want said--because the centrist is famously evasive on the question of power, and anyway conservative enough that they are as respectful toward those on top as they are disrespectful toward those on the bottom, such that even if they did acknowledge such a thing they would not see it as a problem. Still less does the centrist consider the significances of their own lapses in respect for the experts--as in how they disregarded the consensus among climate scientists about anthropogenic climate change as not only real but a problem warranting urgent redress to accommodate the denialists. No, they are sure, the disrespect that bothers them must be a matter of the grubby Know-Nothings being too arrogant and cynical (never mind where that comes from, the centrist is not big on reasoning things out to their causes) to show their upstanding betters the proper respect.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Of Intergenerational Conflict and Military Recruitment
The resurgence of great power conflict over this past decade has brought with it a certain amount of rethinking of the ways in which the Western world has organized its armed forces. The 1990s saw them shift away from emphasizing large-scale conventional conflict to the execution of missions that were smaller in scale but placed a higher premium on rapid-reaction--a reorientation which seemed the safer because of a very high confidence in the capacity of high technology to replace "boots on the ground" in what was essentially a translation of "information age"-type thinking into a "Revolution in Military Affairs".
Since then some have been quicker about it than others--but the mainstream of the dialogue seems to have reoriented itself back toward the prospect of older-style, larger-scale conflict.
Amid all that there has naturally been a good deal of talk about expanded military forces, and how they will come up with the required extra personnel, with proponents of such expansion taking yet another chance to sneer at much-maligned "Generation Z" and its supposed lack of the virtues of earlier generations (not least, "the Greatest"). To his, and the journal's, credit, Brian McAllister Linn published a historically grounded piece in the Autumn 2023 Parameters debunking the myth-making, reminding the professional youth-bashers that "since the beginning of the twentieth century the peacetime volunteer Army" (before which the peacetime volunteer Army was a relatively small entity with limited needs) "has been in a crisis more often than not" with respect to its ability to attract recruits, and that "[t]empting as it is to blame 'wokeness,' slacker mentality, Generation Z, or some other nebulous reason," their predecessors as much as they were prone to " join the service for individual reasons, most based on expectations of personal benefit" rather than greater possession of some "warrior" or "citizen-soldier" quality. Alas, lucidly written as Linn's article is, relatively few of the commentariat these days would even seem to possess the required reading level to understand the text at the most elementary level--let alone use it to enlighten a dialogue as depressingly mired as ever in cultural and intergenerational warfare.
Amid all that there has naturally been a good deal of talk about expanded military forces, and how they will come up with the required extra personnel, with proponents of such expansion taking yet another chance to sneer at much-maligned "Generation Z" and its supposed lack of the virtues of earlier generations (not least, "the Greatest"). To his, and the journal's, credit, Brian McAllister Linn published a historically grounded piece in the Autumn 2023 Parameters debunking the myth-making, reminding the professional youth-bashers that "since the beginning of the twentieth century the peacetime volunteer Army" (before which the peacetime volunteer Army was a relatively small entity with limited needs) "has been in a crisis more often than not" with respect to its ability to attract recruits, and that "[t]empting as it is to blame 'wokeness,' slacker mentality, Generation Z, or some other nebulous reason," their predecessors as much as they were prone to " join the service for individual reasons, most based on expectations of personal benefit" rather than greater possession of some "warrior" or "citizen-soldier" quality. Alas, lucidly written as Linn's article is, relatively few of the commentariat these days would even seem to possess the required reading level to understand the text at the most elementary level--let alone use it to enlighten a dialogue as depressingly mired as ever in cultural and intergenerational warfare.
Making Sense of the Twenty-First Century: A Few Thoughts
While my academic writing on world affairs initially concentrated on security studies this early on led me away from the field's traditional subject matter toward the economics of the matter--and increasingly to economic questions as such.
It was simply where the action seemed to be (more obviously so in a time in which great power conflict was constrained and declining in comparison with the prior century).
And so I went on writing about the decline of growth rates since the post-war boom and especially the 2007 financial crisis, deindustrialization, financialization, the methods for measuring such developments, the associated economic models and ideologies, and even the social consequences of these troubles, from the erosion of the American middle class to the social withdrawal of the young.
Of course, the events of recent years have made it harder to overlook those more traditional emphases of international relations scholarship--with the result that I ended up writing about such topics as the shifting naval balance between the U.S. on one side and Russia and China on the other, the comparative military-industrial capacities of the U.S. and Russia, the contraction in size of the major West European military establishments, and the changing defense postures of Germany and Japan--and of course, the waning of what has commonly been called unipolarity.
In spite of that one should not mistake this for "security" replacing "economics." The unhappy trend of our economic life is, of course, strongly connected with the increased conflict we have seen in the international scene--though as yet few seem to have troubled themselves much about any linkages, not least because the "experts" so hastened to relegate the crisis of 2007 to the past.
The historian Adam Tooze, indeed, admitted to having shared the conventional wisdom when taking up the subject--only to, when publishing his book on that crisis and its aftermath a decade later, confess that he had since learned better. As Tooze came to realize through his researches the Great Recession was not past in 2018, and is not past now--while the shock of the pandemic, which remains ongoing, is not past either, one crisis merely piled atop another.
Alas, others not in a position to pursue scholarship such as Tooze does, or even properly equipped to cope with his very useful but also long, dense, book demanding more than the "eighth grade and under" reading level of even the college-educated, were aware of the fact all along--through the day to day experience of their own lives, which for many became decidedly more bitter than before.
It was simply where the action seemed to be (more obviously so in a time in which great power conflict was constrained and declining in comparison with the prior century).
And so I went on writing about the decline of growth rates since the post-war boom and especially the 2007 financial crisis, deindustrialization, financialization, the methods for measuring such developments, the associated economic models and ideologies, and even the social consequences of these troubles, from the erosion of the American middle class to the social withdrawal of the young.
Of course, the events of recent years have made it harder to overlook those more traditional emphases of international relations scholarship--with the result that I ended up writing about such topics as the shifting naval balance between the U.S. on one side and Russia and China on the other, the comparative military-industrial capacities of the U.S. and Russia, the contraction in size of the major West European military establishments, and the changing defense postures of Germany and Japan--and of course, the waning of what has commonly been called unipolarity.
In spite of that one should not mistake this for "security" replacing "economics." The unhappy trend of our economic life is, of course, strongly connected with the increased conflict we have seen in the international scene--though as yet few seem to have troubled themselves much about any linkages, not least because the "experts" so hastened to relegate the crisis of 2007 to the past.
The historian Adam Tooze, indeed, admitted to having shared the conventional wisdom when taking up the subject--only to, when publishing his book on that crisis and its aftermath a decade later, confess that he had since learned better. As Tooze came to realize through his researches the Great Recession was not past in 2018, and is not past now--while the shock of the pandemic, which remains ongoing, is not past either, one crisis merely piled atop another.
Alas, others not in a position to pursue scholarship such as Tooze does, or even properly equipped to cope with his very useful but also long, dense, book demanding more than the "eighth grade and under" reading level of even the college-educated, were aware of the fact all along--through the day to day experience of their own lives, which for many became decidedly more bitter than before.
The Impossible Writing Tasks the Suits Demand of Writers, and the James Bond Series
Selling Authors, Not Books
As Balzac's vulgarian Dauriat has made clear, the commercial publisher is apt to be more interested in selling the famous name of an author--in selling an author--than in selling an author's writing. One may find this epitomized in the ever-crowdedness of the bestseller lists with celebrity memoirs that, in spite of being ghostwritten on behalf of the illiterates whose names are the object of the traffic, with little regard for the truth, still have nothing to offer an intelligent reader.
Indeed, people have come to expect such selling so much that even those who should know better seem to be taken in by all the nonsense, with the blow-up over a certain gratuitously and superciliously insulting profile of Brandon Sanderson that the editors of Wired magazine bizarrely decided to publish exemplary. Brandon Sanderson was, in the view of the interviewer in question, interesting only as a writer of books that a significant fan base enjoyed reading.
There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is all anyone can--or should--ask of a major commercial author. But the interviewer, who did not seem to understand this, started another of those Internet tempests-in-a-teacup that are all people can talk about for hours, but which they have completely forgotten a month, even a week, later.
It is a sad, sad testament not only to what book-selling had already become in Balzac's day, and how it has only gone on getting more disgusting since, but to the way in which the "Fourth Estate" so utterly assimilates and promotes the logic of those whom it should be challenging.
Indeed, people have come to expect such selling so much that even those who should know better seem to be taken in by all the nonsense, with the blow-up over a certain gratuitously and superciliously insulting profile of Brandon Sanderson that the editors of Wired magazine bizarrely decided to publish exemplary. Brandon Sanderson was, in the view of the interviewer in question, interesting only as a writer of books that a significant fan base enjoyed reading.
There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, that is all anyone can--or should--ask of a major commercial author. But the interviewer, who did not seem to understand this, started another of those Internet tempests-in-a-teacup that are all people can talk about for hours, but which they have completely forgotten a month, even a week, later.
It is a sad, sad testament not only to what book-selling had already become in Balzac's day, and how it has only gone on getting more disgusting since, but to the way in which the "Fourth Estate" so utterly assimilates and promotes the logic of those whom it should be challenging.
Josiah Bounderby and the Aspirational Society
It seemed to me that this is because the cult of the "self-made man," if probably universal today (the Indian item specifically attacked this) is so particularly strong in America today--and if discredited over and over again by those sociologists who actually attend to the facts, challenging it a cultural taboo, so much so that few dare do anything that could be construed as doing so.
Thinking about that in the past I have tended to focus on the ways in which this taboo is used to defend the validity of extreme differences in wealth, but that mainly in terms of how it does so by helping defend the claims to great wealth on the grounds that it is the product of great contributions to society. Factoring into this is what this is supposed to mean to the rest of the public--not only that the extreme difference in outcome is valid, but one way in which they and their house intellectuals deflect calls for egalitarianism, telling "the poors" that "You can do it too!"
Admitting to the reality of Josiah Bounderby would be to admit "No, you very likely can't, and certainly shouldn't pin your hopes on it"--and make it a good deal harder to avoid engaging with all to which such an outlook can lead.
Are the Poor Lonelier Than the Rich?
The images of the lonely rich man and the poor who at least have each other are horribly worn cultural cliché.
And besides being well-worn, probably false, more loneliness likely to be found among the poor than the rich.
"How can that be?" one may wonder.
The plain and simple truth is that society is attentive to the problems of the haves--and brushes off the problems of the have-nots. ("Be grateful for what you have!" is ever the answer to the latter as the former are coddled after their every temper tantrum.) And so the loneliness of the rich, just like all the other problems of the rich, get infinitely more press.
But alongside this there is what leaves people lonely. In David Foster Wallace's meandering (and wildly overrated) but not wholly valueless essay "E Pluribus Unum" there is an insight here and there, with one that caught my eye his remark that "[l]onely people tend rather to be lonely because they decline to bear the emotional costs associated with being around other humans."
Those costs are not the same for everyone.
When you have money and status and are sought after, when people show you deference because they cannot afford to show you offense, you are in a very different position to the person who lacks those things, whose company is not sought after, who no one has to treat well with the result that no one does treat them well, and the "emotional costs" of being around others are that much higher accordingly. When you feel safe and protected by your standing in the world, you are in a very different position than the one who is unprotected--who gets brutalized, and as a result find themselves warier of others generally, and is much more likely to have to repress themselves rather than speak freely, with all the alienations that go with that (the "emotional" economy of which Freud wrote strongly paralleling the monetary one).
Indeed, when we look at such realities as social isolation we tend to find that it is not the children of wealth and privilege who turn hikikomori, but the children of much more socioeconomically marginal families that do so. When we look at social retreat in less extreme ways than that--those who eschew relationships, marriage, starting a family, with all these mean for the potential of being with others in a society which leaves few alternatives for robust personal connections--there is a robust statistical correlation between income and involvement, validating not such stupid presumptions as that "Family men work harder" (as if hard work had anything to do with income!), but the fact that people are less likely to have a chance, let alone act on it, in the absence of the conditions that make it possible. And so on and so forth.
But, as one is reminded by the covers of the magazines that most people actually seem to read, celebrities who have everything else will whine about having no one, and people who have nothing will think "Those rich folk sure have it tough."
And besides being well-worn, probably false, more loneliness likely to be found among the poor than the rich.
"How can that be?" one may wonder.
The plain and simple truth is that society is attentive to the problems of the haves--and brushes off the problems of the have-nots. ("Be grateful for what you have!" is ever the answer to the latter as the former are coddled after their every temper tantrum.) And so the loneliness of the rich, just like all the other problems of the rich, get infinitely more press.
But alongside this there is what leaves people lonely. In David Foster Wallace's meandering (and wildly overrated) but not wholly valueless essay "E Pluribus Unum" there is an insight here and there, with one that caught my eye his remark that "[l]onely people tend rather to be lonely because they decline to bear the emotional costs associated with being around other humans."
Those costs are not the same for everyone.
When you have money and status and are sought after, when people show you deference because they cannot afford to show you offense, you are in a very different position to the person who lacks those things, whose company is not sought after, who no one has to treat well with the result that no one does treat them well, and the "emotional costs" of being around others are that much higher accordingly. When you feel safe and protected by your standing in the world, you are in a very different position than the one who is unprotected--who gets brutalized, and as a result find themselves warier of others generally, and is much more likely to have to repress themselves rather than speak freely, with all the alienations that go with that (the "emotional" economy of which Freud wrote strongly paralleling the monetary one).
Indeed, when we look at such realities as social isolation we tend to find that it is not the children of wealth and privilege who turn hikikomori, but the children of much more socioeconomically marginal families that do so. When we look at social retreat in less extreme ways than that--those who eschew relationships, marriage, starting a family, with all these mean for the potential of being with others in a society which leaves few alternatives for robust personal connections--there is a robust statistical correlation between income and involvement, validating not such stupid presumptions as that "Family men work harder" (as if hard work had anything to do with income!), but the fact that people are less likely to have a chance, let alone act on it, in the absence of the conditions that make it possible. And so on and so forth.
But, as one is reminded by the covers of the magazines that most people actually seem to read, celebrities who have everything else will whine about having no one, and people who have nothing will think "Those rich folk sure have it tough."
"It's Only a Hobby"
We all know the cliché of the recipient of a prestigious award in the arts tearfully thanking everyone they have ever met in their life for their "support."
This is, of course, likely to be pure (to use a less fitting but more polite word than the one I originally had in mind) nonsense.
The reality is that the artiste (as Balzac and London," who both knew what they were talking about, each make clear) is unlikely to find support even among their nearest and dearest, who will not understand the need of an artist to create, or his way of fulfilling it. In London's Martin Eden the protagonist's sister was, if incapable of comprehending it, at least sympathetic to Eden, but her husband, Eden's vulgar oaf of a brother-in-law, was not, never missing a chance to sneer.
One of the clichés of such sneering is that what the artist does is "only a hobby."
To anyone who has sweated and sacrificed for their career such remark is insulting in the extreme--and obtuse as they are the speaker not only likely to know this, but delight in saying so.
Perhaps even after suffering all that it is easy to be gracious in the moment in which one is handed a reward.
But that should never make us forget the reality--especially for the far, far greater number of people for whom the prospect of any such awards night is remote in the extreme.
This is, of course, likely to be pure (to use a less fitting but more polite word than the one I originally had in mind) nonsense.
The reality is that the artiste (as Balzac and London," who both knew what they were talking about, each make clear) is unlikely to find support even among their nearest and dearest, who will not understand the need of an artist to create, or his way of fulfilling it. In London's Martin Eden the protagonist's sister was, if incapable of comprehending it, at least sympathetic to Eden, but her husband, Eden's vulgar oaf of a brother-in-law, was not, never missing a chance to sneer.
One of the clichés of such sneering is that what the artist does is "only a hobby."
To anyone who has sweated and sacrificed for their career such remark is insulting in the extreme--and obtuse as they are the speaker not only likely to know this, but delight in saying so.
Perhaps even after suffering all that it is easy to be gracious in the moment in which one is handed a reward.
But that should never make us forget the reality--especially for the far, far greater number of people for whom the prospect of any such awards night is remote in the extreme.
"Sending Everyone to College," Hard Reality, and the Aspirational Mentality
It has long been conventional wisdom among a significant portion of the country's policymakers and commentariat that a plausible response to problems like industrial difficulties and poverty and inequality is "Send more people to college," all while never entertaining any thought of making college more affordable.
No reasonable person would deny that society derives enough benefit from having a system of higher education that one can consider it a modern necessity, and that in an industrialized country (or any country endeavoring to be industrialized) there is a need for a significant portion of the work force to get at least some post-secondary education.
Still, the "Send more people to college"--at its most extreme, the "Send everyone to college" mentality--has worked out to their, rather than arguing for a living wage, encouraging the young to . . . take on student debt as they train for jobs the market does not provide (as with the extreme disproportion between those who pursue arts degrees and those who find jobs requiring them, and even an arguable overproduction of STEM graduates), or if they do find jobs in them, work in them for only a short time, such that one can question the value of the degree to them as individuals who have to make a living (as with many of those STEM graduates who do land jobs in their fields, but soon find themselves replaced by fresher graduates as they are compelled to go and do something else).
One can take the "Send more people to college" mentality for well-intentioned muddle-headedness--or a cynical dodge. However, in either case it contributed to an avoidance of more meaningful efforts to deal with the country's economic difficulties and help the disadvantaged, while greatly benefiting assorted interests (like those collecting all those student loan payments). Alas, that aspirationalism triumphs so completely over egalitarianism in American political culture, and the way in which it has made a sort of respect for "education" a hollow piety but a piety nonetheless, has made it very difficult for those who are neither muddle-headed nor cynical to call it out.
No reasonable person would deny that society derives enough benefit from having a system of higher education that one can consider it a modern necessity, and that in an industrialized country (or any country endeavoring to be industrialized) there is a need for a significant portion of the work force to get at least some post-secondary education.
Still, the "Send more people to college"--at its most extreme, the "Send everyone to college" mentality--has worked out to their, rather than arguing for a living wage, encouraging the young to . . . take on student debt as they train for jobs the market does not provide (as with the extreme disproportion between those who pursue arts degrees and those who find jobs requiring them, and even an arguable overproduction of STEM graduates), or if they do find jobs in them, work in them for only a short time, such that one can question the value of the degree to them as individuals who have to make a living (as with many of those STEM graduates who do land jobs in their fields, but soon find themselves replaced by fresher graduates as they are compelled to go and do something else).
One can take the "Send more people to college" mentality for well-intentioned muddle-headedness--or a cynical dodge. However, in either case it contributed to an avoidance of more meaningful efforts to deal with the country's economic difficulties and help the disadvantaged, while greatly benefiting assorted interests (like those collecting all those student loan payments). Alas, that aspirationalism triumphs so completely over egalitarianism in American political culture, and the way in which it has made a sort of respect for "education" a hollow piety but a piety nonetheless, has made it very difficult for those who are neither muddle-headed nor cynical to call it out.
"Not Everything's About You!"
Far be it from me to deny that there are self-absorbed narcissists in the world--and perhaps more of them these days than before.
Yet barring someone's being really, really oblivious to the world around them, being really self-absorbed and narcissistic for very long is something a person is unlikely to manage without having a certain minimum of power--enough so that people do not fling moralizing accusations in their faces, and certainly not the ones who will have seen their self-absorption and narcissism up close, and actually suffered from it.
That is why when we hear the charge it is at least fairly common, and maybe more likely than not, that the self-absorbed narcissist in the conversation is not the one being accused--but the accuser.
"Not everything's about you!" they snarl.
Because you expressing any concern for anything but what I am concerned with is an attempt to diminish from how "Everything's about me! Me! MEEEEEEEE!"
Yet barring someone's being really, really oblivious to the world around them, being really self-absorbed and narcissistic for very long is something a person is unlikely to manage without having a certain minimum of power--enough so that people do not fling moralizing accusations in their faces, and certainly not the ones who will have seen their self-absorption and narcissism up close, and actually suffered from it.
That is why when we hear the charge it is at least fairly common, and maybe more likely than not, that the self-absorbed narcissist in the conversation is not the one being accused--but the accuser.
"Not everything's about you!" they snarl.
Because you expressing any concern for anything but what I am concerned with is an attempt to diminish from how "Everything's about me! Me! MEEEEEEEE!"
Is the Cult of Celebrity in Decline?
The title of this post may seem an odd question to ask these days, looking at, for example, the extreme heights to which the pop cultural status of Taylor Swift has ascended. Still, I think that even if there are extraordinary outliers, when we look at the bigger picture this is exactly what is happening these days.
Part of it, I think, is the extreme fragmentation of contemporary culture, the more pronounced because of how online life has fragmented. But I also think that the decline of many particular types of celebrity has been relevant, partly as a matter of that fragmentation but not just because of it. There is, for instance, the decline of the movie star over the course of the century (where such factors as the ascent of the film franchise have played their part). There is the decline of the sports star (a function of a declining interest in sports, in which economic factors may be playing their part). There is the decline of the supermodel (which, contrary to the conventional wisdom, seems to me to have by no means run its course in the 1990s, but continued into our time, partly as advertising has changed). And so on and so forth.
Yet that does not seem all of it, a certain "cheapening" of celebrity having also occurred. Overexposure, which seemed a factor years ago as the tabloidization of everything proceeded apace, has likely played its part, removing the sense of distance that was part of celebrity's mystique (as one notices if they have not come to completely filter out of their minds the contents of the clickbait with which we are barraged wherever we go online). Factoring into this is the way in which the category of celebrity has been broadened. Certainly people of conventional mind look at entertainment, sports, fashion and the rest as frivolous, but when those were the foundation of celebrity of that kind the celebrity was at least supposed to be distinguished by some superlative achievement (artistic or athletic skill, for example), or perhaps just exceptional quality (the special something that made somebody "a star!")--as opposed to the idiots we see on all of these online videos, who are famous in spite of being distinguished by nothing at all (or at least nothing good), and inexplicably get millions of views in spite of that.
All that said, is this decline of celebrity I am talking about a bad thing? I find myself remembering that I have written here about the cult of celebrity as having gone insane in the past, and reflected a good deal that was unfortunate and unhappy in our social life. However, the way in which that cult may be passing, if it is passing, does not seem to be suggestive of things getting much better that way, and maybe even their getting worse.
Part of it, I think, is the extreme fragmentation of contemporary culture, the more pronounced because of how online life has fragmented. But I also think that the decline of many particular types of celebrity has been relevant, partly as a matter of that fragmentation but not just because of it. There is, for instance, the decline of the movie star over the course of the century (where such factors as the ascent of the film franchise have played their part). There is the decline of the sports star (a function of a declining interest in sports, in which economic factors may be playing their part). There is the decline of the supermodel (which, contrary to the conventional wisdom, seems to me to have by no means run its course in the 1990s, but continued into our time, partly as advertising has changed). And so on and so forth.
Yet that does not seem all of it, a certain "cheapening" of celebrity having also occurred. Overexposure, which seemed a factor years ago as the tabloidization of everything proceeded apace, has likely played its part, removing the sense of distance that was part of celebrity's mystique (as one notices if they have not come to completely filter out of their minds the contents of the clickbait with which we are barraged wherever we go online). Factoring into this is the way in which the category of celebrity has been broadened. Certainly people of conventional mind look at entertainment, sports, fashion and the rest as frivolous, but when those were the foundation of celebrity of that kind the celebrity was at least supposed to be distinguished by some superlative achievement (artistic or athletic skill, for example), or perhaps just exceptional quality (the special something that made somebody "a star!")--as opposed to the idiots we see on all of these online videos, who are famous in spite of being distinguished by nothing at all (or at least nothing good), and inexplicably get millions of views in spite of that.
All that said, is this decline of celebrity I am talking about a bad thing? I find myself remembering that I have written here about the cult of celebrity as having gone insane in the past, and reflected a good deal that was unfortunate and unhappy in our social life. However, the way in which that cult may be passing, if it is passing, does not seem to be suggestive of things getting much better that way, and maybe even their getting worse.
The Ephemeralism of What Passes for Mainstream Social Thought: The Supposed Demise of Celebrity Culture in 2020
Amid major shocks the commentariat tells us that great and profound cultural changes are at hand.
A little while later nothing changes--and the silly pronouncements are forgotten.
Exemplary of this is the claptrap we heard during the early months of the pandemic about the "end of celebrity" (in the New York Times and New York Post, at the BBC and in the Guardian, etc., etc., etc.) back when there was at least some acknowledgment of the severity of the crisis, and the reality that "We're not all in this together," that such catastrophe is one thing for the pampered and protected elite, a very different thing for the rest of humanity.
Today it is forgotten as if it never was (just as the pandemic, the Great Recession and much else are talked about as past when they are nothing of the kind). For my part I do think that the cult of celebrity may well be in decline--but for quite other reasons than the shift of social attitudes in a more egalitarian, socially aware, direction.
Then again, changes in social attitudes of that kind are something we would probably find acknowledged last by that mainstream media, given the ideological and personal blinkers of that apparatus' staff, and especially the portion of it that attends to celebrity culture--a rather revolting pack of courtiers and claqueurs for whom sucking up and punching down are not second nature, but first.
A little while later nothing changes--and the silly pronouncements are forgotten.
Exemplary of this is the claptrap we heard during the early months of the pandemic about the "end of celebrity" (in the New York Times and New York Post, at the BBC and in the Guardian, etc., etc., etc.) back when there was at least some acknowledgment of the severity of the crisis, and the reality that "We're not all in this together," that such catastrophe is one thing for the pampered and protected elite, a very different thing for the rest of humanity.
Today it is forgotten as if it never was (just as the pandemic, the Great Recession and much else are talked about as past when they are nothing of the kind). For my part I do think that the cult of celebrity may well be in decline--but for quite other reasons than the shift of social attitudes in a more egalitarian, socially aware, direction.
Then again, changes in social attitudes of that kind are something we would probably find acknowledged last by that mainstream media, given the ideological and personal blinkers of that apparatus' staff, and especially the portion of it that attends to celebrity culture--a rather revolting pack of courtiers and claqueurs for whom sucking up and punching down are not second nature, but first.
Narcissism as a Privilege, Not a Right, and the Cult of Celebrity
Some time ago I had occasion to write about "narcissism." What seemed to me to distinguish narcissism from milder forms of selfishness and self-absorption is that the narcissist does not only put themselves first, but expects others to put them first as well at all times.
This is, of course, an unreasonable attitude for anyone to take toward others. However, as with much that is unreasonable in this endlessly moralizing society we live in with its double and triple and quintuple standards, it is treated as perfectly acceptable in those of high status, whose narcissism is given free rein, while any self-love at all in the less privileged might be unfairly accused of being narcissism of this kind.
As I have remarked, we see narcissism indulged in this way in royalty--every stupid detail of their life given breathless treatment by an unhinged media which treats anyone who finds this foolish as a low and unworthy person, and by no means in just those particular royals' countries. (As Joseph Scalice quipped, Elizabeth Windsor was monarch of Britain, "[b]ut anyone watching TV or reading a newspaper could be forgiven for thinking she was . . . queen of the world" from the attention accorded her in the United States.)
However, there are other sorts of "royalty," as figures from the entertainment world, for example, never cease to remind us. ("I'm still the King!" rants one unhinged example of the type on the track "King" from his latest album.) Their insanity may be less widely and deeply supported than that of crowned heads of state--but it nonetheless finds a measure of backing such as would be inconceivable for even far slighter self-assertion on the part of a "nobody." And in that, I suppose, one can find a measure by which to judge whether or not a person who has for some reason or other ceased to be obscure can really be regarded as a celebrity--the extent to which the media Establishment is prepared to indulge, even to promote, insane narcissism on their part.
This is, of course, an unreasonable attitude for anyone to take toward others. However, as with much that is unreasonable in this endlessly moralizing society we live in with its double and triple and quintuple standards, it is treated as perfectly acceptable in those of high status, whose narcissism is given free rein, while any self-love at all in the less privileged might be unfairly accused of being narcissism of this kind.
As I have remarked, we see narcissism indulged in this way in royalty--every stupid detail of their life given breathless treatment by an unhinged media which treats anyone who finds this foolish as a low and unworthy person, and by no means in just those particular royals' countries. (As Joseph Scalice quipped, Elizabeth Windsor was monarch of Britain, "[b]ut anyone watching TV or reading a newspaper could be forgiven for thinking she was . . . queen of the world" from the attention accorded her in the United States.)
However, there are other sorts of "royalty," as figures from the entertainment world, for example, never cease to remind us. ("I'm still the King!" rants one unhinged example of the type on the track "King" from his latest album.) Their insanity may be less widely and deeply supported than that of crowned heads of state--but it nonetheless finds a measure of backing such as would be inconceivable for even far slighter self-assertion on the part of a "nobody." And in that, I suppose, one can find a measure by which to judge whether or not a person who has for some reason or other ceased to be obscure can really be regarded as a celebrity--the extent to which the media Establishment is prepared to indulge, even to promote, insane narcissism on their part.
Who is Allowed to Love Themselves?
Kurt Vonnegut's classic Slaughter-house Five is a tale (or, given its postmodernist character, anti-tale) about the bombing of Dresden and the relation of time, space, causality and volition--as revealed to its protagonist by the extraterrestrials from Tralfamador who abduct him for display in their zoo. However, it may well be that the most oft-quoted passage in the book has to do not with these but rather Americans' attitude toward wealth and its possession, and particularly the attitude of those who do not have wealth toward themselves as a result of the lack. Believing the "destructive untruth that it is very easy for any American to make money" those Americans who have not done so "blame and blame and blame themselves," and end up loving neither themselves nor each other--an attitude of course urged on them relentlessly, not least by the "rich and powerful" for whom such "inward blame has been a treasure," letting them "do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class" in centuries.
The passage, which has clearly struck a chord with many in the half century since Vonnegut published it (and perhaps done so with more people as the years went by, given the turn of America's political culture), is a reminder that society--hierarchical, exploitative, unequal--does not treat "self-love" as equally the right of all its members, and never lets them forget it. Rather self-love is a privilege of the privileged, with the most extreme example of this monarchy--whose claimed prerogatives the ever-quotable Thorstein Veblen summed up as "inferiority complex with benefit of clergy." Those occupying such strata of privilege are treated not only as having the right to love themselves, but to narcissistically demand the love of everyone.
Quite naturally those of the less privileged strata who violate this rule by simply loving themselves are attacked for it. They are accused of "acting entitled," and should they give evidences of thinking that, in line with their love for themselves, they have not been treated as they think they ought to have been treated, they are accused of the grave sin and crime of "self-pity."
Those who fling about such accusations may think they are upholding morality. Instead they are likely doing the opposite, engaging in the highly immoral practice of moralizing. For after all, those quick to harangue others for their supposed failings in the manner described here tend to be too conventional, too conformist and too cowardly to ever accuse those whose behavior is truly entitled, truly a display of privilege, truly self-pitying, and in feeling so far more likely to be dangerous and harmful to others, because the feeling is combined with power and so inimical to the responsibility supposed to go with it.
The passage, which has clearly struck a chord with many in the half century since Vonnegut published it (and perhaps done so with more people as the years went by, given the turn of America's political culture), is a reminder that society--hierarchical, exploitative, unequal--does not treat "self-love" as equally the right of all its members, and never lets them forget it. Rather self-love is a privilege of the privileged, with the most extreme example of this monarchy--whose claimed prerogatives the ever-quotable Thorstein Veblen summed up as "inferiority complex with benefit of clergy." Those occupying such strata of privilege are treated not only as having the right to love themselves, but to narcissistically demand the love of everyone.
Quite naturally those of the less privileged strata who violate this rule by simply loving themselves are attacked for it. They are accused of "acting entitled," and should they give evidences of thinking that, in line with their love for themselves, they have not been treated as they think they ought to have been treated, they are accused of the grave sin and crime of "self-pity."
Those who fling about such accusations may think they are upholding morality. Instead they are likely doing the opposite, engaging in the highly immoral practice of moralizing. For after all, those quick to harangue others for their supposed failings in the manner described here tend to be too conventional, too conformist and too cowardly to ever accuse those whose behavior is truly entitled, truly a display of privilege, truly self-pitying, and in feeling so far more likely to be dangerous and harmful to others, because the feeling is combined with power and so inimical to the responsibility supposed to go with it.
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