attempt to begin a conversation (a concept inspired by inflectionpoint)

[seathroughghost]

Why do you suppose our culture is apparently obsessed by fame?

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Them Heavy People - Kate Bush (Hammersmith Odeon)

Comments

[dyingeagle]

because we all want to be loved and can't feel it. But we watch others seem to feel it. actors on the screen and then we reason it must only be possible to be loved if you're an actor or a musician or athelete of great stature. that must be the only way to feel things deeply to have anything matter. And then our gaze is turned away from the fact that nothing matters because we don't look at anything but the famous people and all their books and records.

[seathroughghost]

Why, do you suppose, we "can't feel it?" What is broken in us? Has it always been this way? Or is this a product of the post industrial revolution and its antecedents (as some philosophers have proposed)? What is it intrinsic to humans that makes us require such an abundance or reaffirmation? And how we might we possibly create meaning outside of this vicious cycle?

[inflectionpoint]

It was broken before industry came, but industry made it much much much worse and corporate capitalism is even worse

[seathroughghost]

This gave me chills.

(This isn't really a response. More later...)

[dionysusdevotee]

Do you mean obsessed with being famous or obsessed with the famous?

[seathroughghost]

Both!

[dionysusdevotee]

I think each has a different answer

[seathroughghost]

...So out of a perceived lack of acceptance is born the craving for an "ultimate indicator of acceptance"?

I like the idea that celebrities fulfill a cultural desire for high priests and priestesses who channel the divine. And by sheer number of the multitudes who infuse them with such power, might we come, almost to believe?