Who’s Laughing Now?
There was symmetry in the news that barraged us one day last week—Michael Jackson, not to mention Farrah Fawcett, had died, and the governor of South Carolina had made a nitwit and a creep out of himself over a woman in Argentina.
Politics, entertainment—you can't tell where one leaves off and the other takes up.
The weirder, the better, as with the late Mr. Jackson and the politically late Mark Sanford. We eat it all up with big spoons: on TV, on the Internet, in the papers. Have you heard …? If one hasn't, one soon will. Life as Freak Show is the life we lead, due to the expertise of the mass media in satisfying our lust for the worst. It was probably ever thus, but we're just better at it now, and more comprehensive.
Politics, the science of government, didn't used to be so intimately connected to the vast industry that exists to make us laugh and drool. What would the late-night comedians joke about if political jokes fell flat? Would Jon Stewart even have a career? The Michael Jackson of Neverland fame didn't used to have his equivalents in state and national capitals. He does now. Mark Sanford is one such—joining in that unblessed estate the likes of John Edwards, John Ensign, Eliot Spitzer and William J. Clinton.
The bigger politics bulks in our daily obsessions, the more attention we have to pay to it; the more attention we have to pay, the higher our expectations for it soar. Pretty soon an average lawyer becomes the Hope of Humanity.
Even buffoons of a highly conventional sort—Mark Sanford would be a good example—become would-be saviors. Theoretically, lucid "observers" of politics once touted Sanford for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. Such talk may have done him in, as often happens with buffoons. Once they start seeing themselves as saviors, needing only another election victory, a few score millions more in the bank, larger staffs, more time on Meet the Press—it's then they become dangerous.
A powerful buffoon is always someone to be watched with trepidation. He knows no limits. Ohhhh, but he's the center of interest and attention. After a while, he's the Greatest—in his own eyes.
And it's off to Argentina.
It all makes great theater, of course—top entertainment. Sanford, Edwards, Jackson—what fun to ogle, to point, to carp, to harp. They're all so—you know—much more than we are.
How odd. The science of government is the science of ordering our public lives according to tested assumptions about justice and prudence. We're not talking about that now, are we?
It's possible always for public men and women to engage in politics, so conceived. It's also rarer and rarer, as political obsessions take over the whole of life. The power to give us joy—as entertainment does—is supposedly the power that politics exercises. Yet look at what the general run of politicians nowadays offers: cheap and unlimited health care, financial security, a chicken in every pot, joy and satisfaction of just about every sort. By law!
The founders were a bit more modest in their intentions. The security of the nation, the freedom to excel—or not excel, the security of contracts—not much more than that was on offer at the start. It sufficed for a while under Mr. Washington, Mr. Adams, Mr. Jefferson. The end to politics of that limited nature came gradually, then fast, faster, fastest, like a locomotive engine gathering power.
The key word is "power." You get it, in our modern human arrangement, by promising higher and higher levels of joy and satisfaction, rather than pledging to create conditions under which human beings, generally, can shape for themselves the small and large satisfactions that make one glad to live in a place of freedom.
"Entertaining" our politicians certainly are, in the Michael Jackson-Mark Sanford sense. Laugh while you can. The joke seems to get less funny every minute.
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We are much poorer for the loss of Billy Mays than for the deaths--actual or political--of any others mentioned above. And what does even that say of us!
"There was symmetry in the news that barraged us one day last week..." Yes, and that characteristic also explains why the MSM did not bring to the nation's attention, that Miss Fawcett had returned to the Catholic Church, after years of having fallen away, and died after having received the Sacrament of Extreme Unction. When it became obvious to her that death was looming on her doorsteps, she wanted to get right with God. She had asked advice from a priest who told her to rectify her relationship with Ryan O'Neil by getting marriage. O'Neill did announce to the public that marriage was to take place, but she died before it could happen. Now, for the debauched, cynical members of MSM and our nation, this story had no appeal, after all isn't heaven here on earth in our frenzy of consumerism and self-gratification? Isn't God an illusion?
Mr Meng, perhaps that's why coverage of the two deaths is going like this: Michael Jackson!! Michael Jackson!!!! Michael Jackson!!!!!... oh, by the way someone called Farrah died.....Michael Jackson!! Michael Jackson!!!! Michael Jackson!!!!!
To hear the media, you would think that Farrah Fawcett was some minor figure, instead of the icon she really was, at least as famous and popular as Michael Jackson. The bias is disgusting, but I guess it's what we should expect.
Allen, I partially agree, but stardom today is basically "flavor of the week" variety, but this is not one of those cases. Michael Jackson was a super star before Farrah was, and his star shone way longer than hers also. Farrah only did one season on Charlie's Angels, did the poster girl thing, couple movies, and did limited TV work. Of course in being fair it has been a long time since Jackson really made any decent music, but just on "Thriller" and "Bad" alone he outshone Farrah by a mile. Basically Farrah was an icon of the late 70's, while MJ has the 70's(Jackson 5 days)- early 90's.
Everyone PLEASE (I just violated my own injunction against all caps): Can--at the very least--the posters on this site return to using the word "icon" appropriately, before we help drive the Unicorn Hunters at Sault Ste. Marie to banish it entirely from the language next New Year's Eve (if they haven't already)?
BTW, more than one MSM source reported Farrah's reception of Catholic last rites.
@5: Thanks for the correction. At the time, I did not hear of any.
I pray she begged Christ alone for forgiveness, not that bloody whore of an institution in the so-called Eternal City.
And who better to take her to Christ than the Church founded, guided, and ruled by our Lord Jesus Christ Himself?
Thank you Tarkin
(With Buns a flexin)
Giving Birth
To his suggestions.
What's wrong with using the word icon? The way I used it was in context of how it is usually used today with regards to "superstars". I didn't realize Mr Higdon was the "proper grammar czar" here.
@10: "What’s wrong with using the word icon? The way I used it was in context of how it is usually used today with regards to 'superstars'."
Thank you. You just remade my case (@ 5) for me.