Astyk: Michael Jackson mourning b.s.

"You watch: In two years or less, Michael Jackson will be as forgotten as Princess Diana is today"

That's right, the radio stations and all the folks at home will throw away all his recordings like they have hers.

And three weeks ago, hundreds of thousands of fans had tickets to see him perform; good or bad, his tour would have been a big story.

Our values are skewed.
This kind of public adulation and sorrow should be reserved for great inventors, great scientists, great thinkers and philosophers, etc.
Instead, we waste it on great pop stars.
It says a lot about us and very little about Michael Jackson.

"Public celebrity mourning" is little more than an exercise in the perpetration of consumer fraud (and a not-too-sophisticated one at that).

The Jackson family---which is coming across as more like a Mafia "family" than a real Human family in the way it is exploiting this--is trying to make money off this; Al Sharpton is trying to make money (or at least publicity) off of this, and even certain members of Congress are trying to profit from this. The terms that apply here are two: "unseemly" and "frivolous".

The solution remains the same: ignore it. Do not waste so much as a penny on this creature, or on his works. Mr. Jackson was a well-paid member of the menial classes who lived and died in a rather tawdry fashion. He created nothing of lasting value. A waitress or gas-station attendant creates more value, in the course of their working lives, or even of a single working day, than this poor degenerate ever did. Long-term, he certainly will not have the long-term impact of someone possessed of more solid attainments. I agree with Mr. Dreher's assessment; in two years, the CDs of his music will grace remainder bins all over the country, and it will be "Michael Who ?"

Leave the mourning over his life to those who actually knew him. The rest of us have better things to do.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Michael Jackson was undeniably one of the greatest live performers ever to take a stage. But this whole "King of Pop" moniker -- what nonsense. First, if I recall correctly, he was given that title by ... himself. Second, name one piece of genuinely great pop songcraft to come from the pen of Michael Jackson. "Beat It"? "Billie Jean"? "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough"? Please.

For a time Michael Jackson may well have been the world's best male pop dancer. When he was young his remarkable voice could carry a melody with the best of them. But what songs show his writing talent to be on par with the likes of Lennon & McCartney, Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Brian Wilson, Jagger-Richards, Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, James Brown, Elvis Costello, Chuck Berry, Elton John-Bernie Taupin, Sly Stone and on and on and on. As a performer he equaled or bettered all those hitmakers. But as a songwriter he couldn't hold a candle to any of them, or to dozens of others I could tick off in about five minutes. King of Pop my a$$.

Which is a long way of saying: I agree with Rod. Three years from now the public's memory of Michael Jackson will be dim and fading fast. And rightly so.

Not that I won't be praying for the repose of his exquisitely sensitive soul, mind you. Just that this man does not deserve to go down as a role model or a martyr or a holy soul worthy of the kind of undying devotion we've seen pledged ad nauseum these three weeks. He was sick and this is sickening.

Rather than celebrity culture, isn't the cause/problem/issue exhibitionism? People want to publicly mourn, or celebrate, or complain or what have you. It doesn't matter if its relevent to their life, its preferable if it is irrelevent even.

It wasn't long ago you didn't see little shrines along the road where people were killed in accidents like you do today. People didn't show up to leave stuffed animals in front of missing strangers homes while the TV reports capture it Live at 6 & 10. We did not need relatives testifying at sentencing for us to know they missed the murder victim, or just complaining to Madoff about their lost cash. Heck, peope even blog/network/tweet how irritating all this exhibitionism can be now. Wait, forget that last one.

I am not sure what it is, but we as a culture want to participate in things it wasn't normal to participate in before.

There are upsides to the severe market fragmentation that has taken place over the past 20 yeras. One of those upsides is that I can entirely ignore spectacles like the Michael Jackson saga. I don't think I'm alone in that. As the saying goes, "Nothing popular is really popular anymore."

No doubt, tens of millions of people really are interested in the various Jackson news, and that may justify the schlock media's focus on it in terms of pursuing market share. But in a country of 300 million people that isn't all that much. Hyper-coverage of a subject no longer indicates a deeply felt, widespread interest among the public.

In the case, I strongly suspect MOST people aren't following this nonsense too closely, absolutely "mourning" in any way, and aren't pretending to do so.

I'm afraid the "bull**it" in this piece isn't limited to criticizing the overly dramatic mourning of a sad, crazy celebrity. Where does Sharon get off making a ridiculous statement like, "We are not permitted to grieve extravagantly or get maudlin over the fact that we pass on less to our children in every generation, or that we have a much less secure future than we once did"? Is there some anti-grieving statute I am not aware of? Why would you grieve for these fallacies anyway? Every generation benefits from advancements in medicine and technology that prolong lives and decrease human suffering, and the future is no less secure than it has always been. There have never been guarantees in life--the quality of it or how long you live it. Get real. Perhaps Sharon would like to rant on a bit more about poor, changing Planet Earth. After all, everybody knows that the last ice age was caused by the dinosaurs refusing to drive hybrid cars or switch to fluorescent light bulbs.

The media certainly blows things out of proportion, and the general public idolizes many people who do not deserve significant recognition, but it does a disservice to entertainers to say they are trivial. I dare say millions of people around the world received more joy from Michael Jackson's records and videos than they ever did from Sharon's lost frogs. While Michael Jackson will never again get the airplay that he did in the 1980s, it is a safe bet that his earlier Jackson 5 recordings will live on, as do Frank Sinatra's and John Lennon's, and countless other artists who endeared themselves to the world.

Rick:

Your comment fails in one important respect. Peak oil, economic difficulties or global-warming/flooding issues are, at least, serious issues that can be intelligently debated on their merits. The prospect of Peak Oil affects everyone who uses energy. Economic armageddon can affect everyone who uses/produces goods or services. Global warming/flooding affects, conceivably everyone who lives on this planet.

Michael Jackson, in comparison to these subjects, is fluff and less than fluff. Dust in the wind, if even that much.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Troy, roadside and other little shrines and memorials are extremely common in culturally Catholic places outside of the United States; I'm not sure what this example is supposed to prove. Although I've seen some nutty conservatives rant about roadside shrines because they're something that "illegal immigrants" (by which they mean Mexicans) put up, are in bad taste, etc. Exhibitionist? I dunno. But I know it always makes me sad when I see empty Protestant cemetaries with no visitors, no flowers, no balloons or trinkets or makeshift shrines at the grave left by loved ones for their departed, like I see when I visit my Dad's grave.

Of course, no one has ever accused us Catholics of having impeccable taste, or of being undemonstrative (unless they're Irish). ;) For good taste and dignity I guess you'd want an Anglo-Catholic. ;)

As far as Michael Jackson goes, it's a bit over the top, but, for the Jackson family (or at least, Michael and his brothers and sisters), this is the only kind of life they've ever really known. One lived in front of crowds and fans. I can't imagine why anyone was expecting anything less. And none of us knows what his private life was really like, we don't *know* that he was a pedophile: he *was* acquitted. And even if he was, we really should try to remember that he was someone's beloved son, brother, and to those beautiful children, their beloved "best Daddy in the world".

Lord Karth,

Yes, a Global Flood would certainly have global repercussions.

So would a severe drought of oil — or cheap replacements.

But neither will happen, in our lifetimes or many to come.

They are fantasies, indulged by those with a certain psychological profile -- and propagated by more cynical folks who can profit by selling doom.

There is also a large element of fantasy (and again, profit!) in "the myth of Michael Jackson" that is being propagated right now.

But at least the Michael Jackson myth is more rooted in reality than the Peak Oil! or Global Flooding! myths.

Whatever else can be said about Jackson, it is simply a fact he is known to more people than few other figures in history — and that he leaves behind an enormous body of music and video from a 40 year career, that hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, have seen and heard.

Regardless of any judgment of merit, his death is truly an event on these grounds alone.

This Gail Collins op-ed is a good skewering of Congress and particular Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (who's usually in need of a good skewering).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/opinion/09collins.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

"of course, not permitted" That's the best you've got? Grieve all you want to. Who's stopping you, really?

I agree, but I think what's happening here is a common fallacy: mistaking what's on TV for reality. When Sharon Astyk says we're not permitted to grieve extravagantly, what she seems to mean is that we're not permitted to decide what will get covered extravagantly on television. I'm reminded of the character in the old "Bloom County" comic strip who would wake up his dad in the middle of the night screaming the latest tabloid celebrity gossip as if it really was urgent news -- as if the troubles in some movie-star couple's marriage, for instance, were genuinely an emergency for the rest of us. The joke was that the kid couldn't distinguish between what the media told him to care about and what was really important. Unfortunately a lot of "culture critics" can't either.

Fortunately, though, there's a fairly simple cure for this syndrome: Turn off the TV once in a while. I myself have watched almost no coverage of Michael Jackson's death or funeral, and as a result I don't feel my emotions have been manipulated or "channeled" at all.

How did America get so sick and strange that a space-alien like Michael Jackson gets JFK-style coverage and praises upon his demise? People should look away in embarassment; instead, they watched it all on live TV.

I think I disagree.

The music will last, along with the videos and the dancing. The pop influence, in other words.

And the questions will last, because the Jackson empire is all about rumors and scandal and mild forms of shock. I think his grasp on the tabs will be similar to Elvis and the other neo-aliens.

Mr. Dreher - Will you PLEASE shut up about Michael Jackson!! Why on earth is a so-called "crunchy con" so OBSESSED with attacking Michael Jackson??

The point is, as Sharon said, that instead of taking a moment to think about our narrowing future prospects, the loss of natural beauty and life around us, and numerous other tragedies in which we as a people are deeply are enmeshed, we make a spectacle of mourning for pop phenomena who do nothing but distract us from our problems.

Again, "we" do not do this. The producers and assignment editors who decide what goes on TV do this. The only way it's "our" doing is if we forget how to separate ourselves and our own lives from what we see in the media.

I don't know, I seriously don't watch TV except when at I'm at my grandmother's house, and all she uses the TV for is the for the broadcast for the blind (they read the newspaper on public TV in the morning) and then TCM and crime shows at night.

I saw a few pictures of the ceremony on newspaper front covers and news websites. There was some mention of it on NPR, but not much.

So I'm not really sure what all the hoopla is about. Turn off the TV, or turn it to TCM or something.

I wish I could remember the exact source, but I cherish a line from a science fiction piece (not sure if it was a book or video) in which a character looks back on our time and describes it as "a psychotic era in which actors and sports figures were mistaken for people of importance".

Princess Di and Mother Teresa died on the same day. As we all know, the press attention was overwhelmingly devoted to coverage of Princess Di.

It’s not my intent to pass judgment on Princess Di whose limited charitable efforts may have helped someone and whose life, as a media-ravished royal, was probably pretty miserable.

But, as thomas tucker said, we need to mourn the great ones. Mother Teresa was such a great one. She gave up her own comforts to help the poor of India die with a modicum of comfort. She sacrificed herself so that those unloved on earth could know the love of God. Of course, the last thing she would have wanted would be publicity after her death.

It is we who needed to know about this great one and mourn her collectively.fnq

Just for the record, Blessed Teresa actually died five days later than Diana, although it was the day before Diana's funeral.

Which reminds me of another point - even Diana, who died in a foreign country and also required police investigation, was buried within a week. Why is Jackson still above ground?

I disagree with the comment at the original post that claimed every generation has an icon who has a spectacle televised funeral and mentioned Monroe, Presley, and Lennon. I actually don't believe any of those three had spectacle funerals of this type, although certainly many funs went nuts on their own time.

Who in the world are we to judge anyone. If people want to praise him now that he is dead so be it. The boy admitted that he lied because his father made him do it. You people just seek out the negative.

As they were saying, Michael set the bar for a lot of people. He made history in music as well as his charitable works. It was well worth it to me.

Again, WHO ARE YOU TOO JUDGE?

Instead of comparing Michael Jackson's death to Princess Di, how about the recent death of Steve McNair? He died under shady circumstances, yet here in Nashville, we're talking about his football career and his family. In fact, it's pretty strange--my mother will tell me how she pities Michael Jackson's children one moment and then the next tell me about how she cried during McNair's memorial and all the good things he did.

As for what Michael Jackson was three weeks ago, is Sharon unaware that he was about to start a new tour? There are people in England with tickets for a show of his they'll never see.

Anyways, I didn't follow his career. His death shocked me, but it made me feel for my friend who would listen to his music at work. I wasn't affected by his death, and because of that have decided not to watch the memorial or anything else about him. I find great use in my TV's power button.

Re: I would also apply the above quote to the veneration of the Saints.

I think it works better there. Anti-monarchial politics is respectably ancient, common among both the Greeks and Romans. The notion that all of us Americans (except maybe Florence King who claimed to be a monarchist, though it was never clear when the lady was joking) have had our tap roots to Eden cut is a bit over the top.

Michele said:
"Still haven't participated in the Michael Jackson worship. Don't plan to."

You just did.

We are, of course, not permitted to mourn dramatically for things actually worth grieving over - it is either normal or trivial that we cannot safely fish in the water, that small frogs that I once captured and released no longer exist, that we face a world of declining resources and a great deal of conflict over those resources. We are not permitted to grieve extravagantly or get maudlin over the fact that we pass on less to our children in every generation, or that we have a much less secure future than we once did.

I come out of lurking to point out that there are plenty of people who do mourn these things publicly - and, more than that, who actually work to improve the situation. They're called activists. Plenty of people are focused on those things, and if more people would pay more attention to them and support their work to whatever level they're able to (financially, letter to the editor, participating in demonstrations, etc.), things would be very different.

Who gives a sh** one way or the other?