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Wednesday 30 March 2016

The modern and meaningless cult of mindless, western celebrity figures


By Stanley Collymore

Quite seriously what on earth inexplicably conspires to cause
supposedly ordinary individuals and even collectively as
well large numbers of people to wantonly dessert all
apparent commonsensical notions of behaviour
that one would normally have expected them
to indulge in and cheerfully in their place
stupidly affix their devoted and clearly
committed loyalties to the manifestly
ostentatiously misleading but all the same alluring mast
of the generalized, massively harebrained, customarily
contrived, invariably cynically, and the methodically
manipulatively orchestrated by others measurably
self-centredly induced versions of what in their
delusional perceptions ought to establish and
consequently must suit their rather skewed
interpretation of what celebrity status is
all about and who accordingly should
either appreciatively be permitted to
join or else be mockingly debarred
from the ranks of this noticeably
artificial and unscientifically
based observation of theirs
as to who is or shouldn’t
be graded as a celebrity
status man or woman?

An entirely and unreservedly irrational loss of reason
that is itself abysmally inculcated and furthermore
intuitively followed up by a mindless and quite
noticeably an explicit and decidedly uncaring
unawareness of or else the irresponsible and
deliberate discarding of either all or most
of the tried and tested aspects that have
favourably, genuinely and enduringly
stood the rigorous test of time and
in the process of doing so confidently ensured that
the crucial and salutary interests of all mankind
would be and did substantially stand in good
stead. Or instead, or am I to wonder, ought
these commendable qualities to now be
needlessly abandoned and no longer
deemed as important assets much
less so be viewed as indispensable ones to the
conscientiously ongoing, apt and progressive
enhancement of human kind; while those
with unintelligibly and unwarrantedly
substantial influence constantly do
their level best to either profane
every thing that’s esoteric, or
else transparently resort to
circumscribing anything
that rewardingly could
be beneficial to even
the most obdurately
ill-informed mind!

© Stanley V. Collymore
29 March 2016.


Author’s Observations:
The word celebrity certainly has a long, very old and prestigious pedigree that goes back to the Latin word celebritas which was itself derived from an earlier Latin word celeber which was preceded by celebr whose meaning was “frequented or honoured.” And down the ages these words passed into old French as cebebrite, and specifically because of the extremely close and enduring linguistic links which existed and still do between the English language and French and characteristically cemented primarily as a direct result of the 1066 Norman invasion, conquest and settlement first of England and later the entirety of the British Isles the word we’re discussing here predictably made its way into the integrated Anglo-Saxon dialect as celebrity.

In contemporary English however the word celebrity commonly refers to a famous person and particularly so someone or persons involved in entertainment or sport and who are thus regarded as being known of by many people. But what are the true characteristics either of or correspondingly for the word famous? Interestingly enough no reference in that specific generalization is ever consciously made about these individuals’ intrinsic worth or lack of it as human beings, which I would have thought should have been fundamental characteristics that were genuinely requisite for anyone to possess that was considered whoever by as truly worthy of the definitions celebrity and famous.

Alas however that certainly isn’t the case even when celebrity and famous can both turn out at times to be a most awkward and even a hugely problematical double-edged sword which can be dreadfully troublesome for those who’re directly involved. For like the reverse side of a coin famous and celebrity have their flipsides as well with the words infamous and non-celebrity firmly embedded there and which can and do often sit uneasily and discomfitingly with the frequent and fatuous acclamation that is profusely and rather unwarrantedly given to those who were irresponsibly and brainlessly hailed as incontestably famous or eminent celebrity figures. And the name Jimmy Savile immediately comes to mind although he was by no means the only such person regrettably still alive or thankfully dead as he now is that appropriately and unquestionably falls into that flawed category, shall we charitably say, of universally applauded and dementedly lauded famous personalities and celebrities.

Even so the fundamental and still unresolved conundrum, although a number of conjectural hypotheses have at times been put forward for this ongoing state of affairs, is precisely why is it that so many people globally, but most particularly so in the west, are so evidently and intransigently mesmerized by as well as infernally and addictively hooked on this celebrity status cult obsession of significantly and more often than not exceedingly irrationally hero-worshipping other mortal human beings; and besides doing so unhesitatingly and without a solitary moment’s thought or any consideration whatsoever in relation to factoring into that puerile and unthinking equation of theirs any attentive regard for the intrinsic human worth or inestimable moral value system or otherwise of those whom they’ve inanely and most self-indulgently placed atop of the pedestals usually built on the shifting sands of populous and capricious public opinion that they and others have self-satisfyingly erected at the time to their inglorious but wannabe “immortalized” celebrity heroes?

And I ask myself: “How can anyone be so entirely lacking in self-worth that the only pride which they think they can realistically achieve and revel in is through the deluded notion of hero-worshipping someone else? Acknowledging that person’s capabilities is one thing but hero-worshipping them to the point of idiotic fixation? Sorry to disappoint but that doesn’t, never has or will it ever work for me! Not even in an inveterately class-obsessed and social climbing, cap-doffing Britain.”

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