"ANIMAL FARM" AMERICAN STYLE in the 21st CENTURY!

“ANIMAL FARM” AMERICAN STYLE in the 21^st 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.