“ANIMAL FARM” AMERICAN
STYLE in the 21st CENTURY!
James R. Fisher, Jr.,
Ph.D.
(c) August 17, 2014
REFERENCE:
The piece on identity
has generated some interest. This is
representative of the responses.
A READER WRITES:
Hello Jim.
This may be somewhat off topic but I suspect you have some
insights into this phenomenon.
Yesterday I was trying to explain to a Japanese visitor why
I thought "squeaky clean" Justin Bieber had recently become a
"bad boy.”
In my view at least, when one becomes a celebrity and the
world adopts you as its own, your biggest battle is to remain grounded; to
retain your sense of who you really are, your identity.
Perhaps young Justin Bieber has lost himself, at least
temporarily. Or perhaps he is rejecting the image/role that was foisted upon
him by the world.
If you have another view I would like to hear it.
Bieber is not unique of course. Celebrities constantly fall
from grace.
The world seems to enjoy placing certain people on a
pedestal and then delights when they topple from the heights; unable or
unwilling to live up to their appointed identity.
I would not care to be a celebrity. Such a struggle...
Take care of yourself... that back especially.
George
DR. FISHER RESPONDS:
George,
Fortunately, I know who Justin Bieber is thanks to my three
granddaughters, whereas my two grandsons don't seem to fancy him one way or the
other. Four of them are nine, and one
six. Otherwise, I would not have the foggiest
idea who he was.
Even as a youngster, I wasn't into popular culture, and as
BB can tell you, I never remember the names of tinsel celebrities on television
or in film, authors is quite another matter.
I say this in order to qualify my limited perspective on
this young man, who seems to me to have a lot in common with the “spoiled brat”
persona of baby boomer parents of which I expect he is a grandson.
For the life of me, I cannot understand the draw of “American
Idol” and like-minded programs where ordinary people quite often with little or
no talent compete to become instant celebrities.
Did Justin Bieber rise to fame in this
manner? I have no idea, but if he did,
blame those addicted to celebrity consciousness as much for the
aggravation.
The irony of our times, again from my vantage point, is that
so many want to leave the comfort zone of the amateur for the professional at a
time when the amateur is coming into his or her own in virtually all endeavors. This is not new.
Culture periodically attempts to unshackle itself from the absolutism
of the established order.
This was the
central theme of the fantasy allegory of Jonathan Swift (1662-1745) with Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and George
Orwell with Animal Farm (1946) and Nineteen Eighty Four (1949).
Both authors targeted readers with only a passing interest
or comprehension of power, politics and history where the objective of the minority
was to keep the majority down by the device of distracting subjugation.
Justin Bieber seems to be a current if
unwitting ploy to that end.
Those in charge have mucked up the world as far back as the
Romans with the distraction of gladiators in the coliseum to make the mundane
seem consequential.
Can you imagine the
surprise when the Visigoths and Germans invaded Rome, laying waste to it,
followed by a thousand years of what was called “the dark Middle Age”?
Justin Bieber, child that he is, pampered child no less,
seems to be a pawn in the hands of the puppet masters that control us all.
Swift and Orwell used satire to demonstrate this fact with
their works having little instrumental or terminal impact in the long run.
The phantasmagoria
of the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels and Pigs as Old Major (Karl Marx), Napoleon (Joseph Stalin)
and Snowball (Leon Trotsky) in Animal Farm have been reduced to Disney productions.
Orwell is saying men exploit animals in much the same way as
the rich exploit the poor.
Swift, an
Irishman, is more focused on power and its corruption, given the struggle of
the Irish with Great Britain.
Fast forward to our recent past. Wozniak and Jobs, Gates and others were amateurs,
who created the electronic age, only to have it spin off into vacuous
entertainment as personal media (Face book, et al) and 24/7 superfluous
reporting called “cable news,” further subjugating the majority to the whims of
the minority.
These amateurs found their way in the dim light of garages
when the bright lights of academia found no place for their kind.
They were children who went against the grain
of convention when the parents of society had lost their way.
We forget that science was born by amateurs of the cloth
when the Church was omnipotent, and the Inquisition executed heretics for
uncovering the truths of nature. I wrote
a book on this subject that was never published, attempting to show from my
perspective what Swift and Orwell did in fantasy allegory.
The parents of society always want to keep their children in
place, controllable and docile according to parental dictates. Materialistic society has evolved with money the god of that control.
Money is the tapeworm that traps people in self-rejection giving credence
to celebrity as their social marquee.
Money is what drives the Justin Biebers of the world into
seeking and savoring meaningless idolatry at the expense of personal worth and
comfortable identity.
Money is the phantom that if you don’t have it you pay for
it at every hour of the day with petty humiliation and unnecessary discomfort.
Consequently, should you not have money, you beg, borrow or
steal to pay to see a Justin Bieber performance or buy his DVD’s or books or
apparel or facsimiles of him for yourself or your children.
Seen as an admirer of Justin Bieber, or whatever
celebrity you idolize, you have synthetic identity with Justin Bieber replacements in the wing to give you yet another synthetic identity.
My Animal Farm is
the workplace in my writings, where I find much in common with Swift and Orwell.
The constant is the retreat from adulthood into the juvenile of every age. We can write about it but not change it.
No, the world of celebrity is not a kind
place, nor a safe place to be.
Identity cannot
be found in mass adulation, or found without struggle.
Authentic identity is the ultimate power which has nothing
to do with money or status, but everything to do with contentment.
Jim
PS My back is fine.
Thanks for asking.
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