Becoming Famous? No, It Ain't Worth It

MTV has a TV show called Real World/Road Rules Challenge. It is a competition between former cast members of the reality TV series’ Real World and Road Rules. A show like this exists solely because Real World-ers and other reality “stars” cannot let go of their fifteen minutes of fame. After finding out that reality TV does not turn participants into real celebrities, they latch onto any D or F List event, failing to see obscurity as a more attractive option than fame.

Yes, it is better not to be famous. We live in a narcissistic culture that tells us fame and renown are around the corner. Worse, unlike in the old days (the 1990’s), when you actually had to work hard (Bill Gates; Warren Buffett) or have a special world class talent (pro athletes; movie stars; rock stars) to become rich and famous, nowadays reality TV and the Internet give us the illusion that celebrity is in the grasp of Every Man. People really believe they can become famous by applying to be on Real World and Survivor.[1] People really believe they can become famous by posting YouTube Videos and writing blogs.[2] Even Time Magazine bought into this fad by naming YOU as person of the year, complete with a mirror shaped like a computer screen on the cover.

Reality TV stars are like those weird kids you knew in high school who did things like color their hair purple. They feared not getting any attention, and believed that bad attention is worse than not getting noticed at all. Instead of being unique or special, they blended in with the other outcasts. Even though they had attention, they still didn’t fit in with the cool kids. What they didn’t realize is that being cool is just something you are or you aren’t; unless you are a hot chick in a movie who people can’t tell is hot because she wears glasses and a ponytail, then suddenly lets her hair down and ditches the glasses, you cannot go from being uncool to cool. It just doesn’t happen. Reality TV stars get the same shunning from real famous people. The Real World is not a ticket into the Hollywood inner circle. You need to be famous because of that elusive quality known as “cool;” it can’t come from whoring yourself out to the reality TV executives or coloring your hair purple, depending on whether 15 minutes of fame or high school attention is your goal.

But what about real fame? Isn’t that worth it? Isn’t it worth becoming famous for being a good baseball player or great actress? There are benefits. On a personal level, riches and fame would allow me to wipe out my college loans in one fell swoop. I would take pictures of myself with all the hot babes who throw themselves at me, then mail them to all to all the girls who rejected me and stuck me in the Friend Zone. But, still, this wouldn’t bring happiness. It would just make me a token of whatever it is I’m famous for. Think of the famous people you’ve heard of. George W. Bush is, to the world, President of the United States. And that’s pretty much it. Lebron James is a star basketball player. Simon Cowell is that guy who puts people down on American Idol. Fame transforms you from a well rounded person into a Wikipedia entry.

How many people know me? Know of me? Hundreds, maybe a few thousand. Who am I? I am a son, a brother, a nephew, a cousin, a friend, someone who makes you laugh, someone who is shy, but funny when he opens up. Let’s say I randomly got picked to be on Real World; I would become: Sean Pidgeon, contestant on Real World. I would be a stub on Wikipedia. And this would change me not just to the world, but to the people who actually know me. When someone I know mentions me, she (or he) won’t say, “oh yeah, Sean Pidgeon! He was my camp counselor/teacher/I went to college with him/I worked with him. He made me laugh/we had a lot of fun on that Montreal trip/ you really need to meet this guy/you would love him!” Instead, she will say, “oh yeah, Sean Pidgeon. He’s the guy who flew to the moon with NASA/starred in that Oscar winning movie/played in the NFL. I knew him when he was in college/worked with me in the summer/went to kindergarten with him.” And it would be worse being famous or semi-famous for failure, such as being an NBA benchwarmer or a career minor leaguer or a disgraced politician. Then people would point to an innocuous past event, such as the time you got in trouble for gym class, for a “sign” that you had your failure coming all along.

Leave the reality shows for those kids who color their hair purple. Leave the authentic fame of politicians, movie stars, and sports heroes to the originally cool kids. “Cool” is too much responsibility anyway. Enjoy being anonymous to the world. You are the world already to those you love.

[1] I do not include American Idol in my critique. For one, I really do enjoy AI. And it is a proven talent agency. Singers there do become stars. AI is not, in my opinion, the latest reality fad, but rather harkens back to the old days of variety (think Ed Sullivan Show, or for the younger crowd like me, Ed McMahon’s Star Search).
[2] To be completely honest, I would probably have to include myself.

Can there be Morality without Religion?

Karl Rove is known (both affectionately and derisively) as the mad genius behind the Bush Administration’s rise to power. He organizes the campaigns to get all wings of the Republican base—rich businessmen and evangelicals—into a sometimes awkward looking marriage; everything that need be done to keep Dubya in power. The recent revelation in a NY Times interview with Christopher Hitchens that Rove is “not a believer” adds an interesting twist to this tale. The man behind the evangelical rise to political power is an atheist.

The blog entry pushing the story on the NY Times Opinionator got the responses flowing. Secular progressives, those most likely to disapprove of Rove in the first place, were in a tizzy. ‘Can we excommunicate Rove?’ asked one atheist, apparently only half in jest. Conservative religious believers responded with comments suggesting that their Republican ‘bad apple’ can be explained away through his lack of faith. One commentator dared ask if we could possibly be surprised that a godless man would lack moral conviction.

The issue of belief vs. unbelief, like any other contentious issue, brings out the same arguments on all sides. Even though the topic at hand was an unbeliever working hard to keep a religiously motivated political regime in power, the debate in the comment area degenerated into the typical argument over whether there can be morality without God. And nothing bristles an atheist more than the suggestion that morality is tied into supernatural religion.

‘No,’ says the atheist, ‘we don’t need God to have morality. I can be a good person without believing in some fairy tale guy in the sky.’ The believer will predictably respond by asking, ‘What incentive is there to be good if there is no God to reward or punish your behavior in the afterlife?’ The atheist is prepared with his smug altruism: ‘Is it not better to do good for its own sake rather than for a heavenly reward?’

The atheist, in his response, misunderstands the statement, best expressed by 19th century Christian Fyodor Dostoevsky (and also believed by 19th century atheist Friedrich Nietzsche), “If there is no God, all is lawful.” This belief—that without God, there is no right and wrong—does NOT imply that atheists can’t be good people. Atheists can be good people, and many are. Yes, some atheists (Lenin, Stalin, Kim Jung Il) are bad, but some Christians are bad too. This belief—that without God, there is no right and wrong—also does NOT imply that people should only be good because God said so. The atheist is right; it is better to be good for goodness sake, as Santa Claus would say. Though, we can’t discount ulterior incentives to be good, whether this or other worldly. Yes, ideally man would refrain from killing his brother solely out of a proper sense of justice. Ideally, we would need no law for man to see that, yes, he is his brother’s keeper. And, I believe, most people would refrain from murder without legal proscriptions. But, we know human nature, and we know that incentives and prohibitions are a necessary part of bringing about proper moral behavior in man, even with the hope that man will someday transcend this and live, as the atheist (and the true Christian) dreams, a virtuous life solely because it is the right thing to do.

What this belief—that there is no right or wrong sans God—does imply is it that without God, right and wrong ultimately have no absolute value. Atheists can be “good” people if there is no God, just as Christians can, but “good” and “bad” will only have any meaning in the sense that an action is relatively beneficial. Good and bad, without God, can only be spoken of in the sense that, when a lion eats a lamb, it is good for the lion and bad for the lamb. Yes, an atheist can be a good person. Yes, it is best to be good for its own sake, not for hope in an afterlife (even if one does have hope for life in heaven). But if there is no God—if this life is the only life and we become nothing when we die—then right and wrong, good and evil, beauty and love and happiness and life all have no meaning.

I am no prophet of doom. I am not warning us; I am not calling America to turn back to God or face a descent into nihilism. Will society collapse? Will people despair in the recognition that a world without God is meaningless? Probably not. Most would not think things through to their end in daily life. Just as most Christians do not give their all to Christ in the manner of St. Francis of Assisi, most people in a world without God would not, like Ivan Karamazov, see things through to their logical conclusion and out of despair, choose to pass on the cup. Life in a Godless world would be fairly similar to a world with God, or to our current world, a world struggling between being a God-filled or Godless world.

The difference would need to be grasped subtly in a view from the distance. This view can best be observed in a glimpse of literature. The novels of Ian McEwan are deeply moving accounts of the way people live today. But in the end, one is not filled with hope at their conclusion. In his novel Saturday, we meet a neurosurgeon, married to a loving wife, preparing himself for a nice family dinner and the return home of his daughter. The backdrop is a London protest of the Iraq War, and he delights in the return home of his daughter while simultaneously fretting over an incident from the early afternoon. At novel’s end, we are relieved at the happy ending for a just man, but we feel a touch of sadness, since it is obvious, both subtly and overtly, that he is missing that relationship with the supernatural in his own life. Despite his proficient understanding of the workings of the brain, he realizes in that day’s events his helplessness to control his world. This fact is a truism for all; the tragedy is he cannot bring himself to turn to God in his own ‘Job’ moment.

The truly committed Christian gives herself completely over to Christ, like the Little Flower St. Therese and St. Antony of the Desert and St. Francis of Assisi. The truly thoughtful atheist sees things all the way through, like Dostoevsky’s fictional Ivan Karamazov, who “respectfully” returns God “the ticket” and promises to give up drinking from the cup (of life) at age 30. Most Christians (me included) don’t let God get too much in the way, and live a normal, this-world-centered, life. Most atheists don’t let their non-belief play too much into day-to-day life, and live normal this-world-centered lives. It’s at the end of the day, I fear, that the person lacking faith, despite his resolute pride, will, like Ian McEwan’s Saturday neurosurgeon, recognize his helplessness at controlling his world, and miss out on turning to He who gives life meaning.