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Thanks Sara. I thought I was getting the original e-online through the Yahoo link -- but obviously yours is the real thing. That's what I was looking for. (Someone had sent me the column via e-mail, and I had go looking for the original)
posted
O.K. A couple thoughts after reading Stein's column.
I disagree with him that acting, creating art, is not important. In a very real way, what those actors do on the screen inspires all those 'real' people to do what they do. Why did the soldier throw himself on the bomb? Perhaps because he had visions of being a hero in his head that he learned from his family and the big screen.
Stein makes a big deal about the pampered lifestyle and the money stars make. Well, there's a reason they're making that money: they put themselves on the road to greatness and worked hard at it and became good at what they do. They took a million to one shot at stardom and succeeded. What is wrong with this?
I agree that stars are not greater than others, all those people that Stein mentioned. I think star watchers are pretty lame, myself. But this does not diminish what they, themselves, do and their own talents and that they, themselves, are great in their own way.
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What Stein has discovered is that celebrity does not correlate to self-worth.
Yay.
But as someone who's liked him for a while, I'm rather surprised to discover that he appears to have only now realized this.
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quote:I disagree with him that acting, creating art, is not important. In a very real way, what those actors do on the screen inspires all those 'real' people to do what they do. Why did the soldier throw himself on the bomb? Perhaps because he had visions of being a hero in his head that he learned from his family and the big screen.
I agree. I also think that there is something narrow about his approach to a star. I like soldiers fine, but to the extent that they are doing what they are told because they are told to do so, I'm more willing to say that thinking parents have greater star power.
Think about it, with all of his talk about the star power of soldiers and rescue workers, he admits at the end of his column:
quote: As so many of you know, I am an avid Bush fan and a Republican. But I think the best guidance I ever got was from the inauguration speech of Democrat John F. Kennedy in January of 1961.
On a very cold and bright day in D.C., he said, "With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth...asking His blessing and His help but knowing that here on Earth, God's work must surely be our own."
The most potent display in his life did not come at the hands of a dude with a gun, it was a speech by a Kennedy.
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I think he was just talking about the difference between the soldiers doing what they do out of most of the public eye (many people don't know those heroes, at least individually) whereas the celebrities get a lot of individual attention by the public -- they are known by name and deed and character. To me, he was just saying there are other people he thought deserved that same kind of recognition.
Or could be -- he has just spent so many years around all these people with so much money and ego, that he got burned out at all of it.
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I tend to agree with Stein that hollywood stars really aren't anything to get worked up about, and most of them aren't someone you would want your kid looking up to.
I especially like that he considers his number one duty to be a good father and husband and son. That's somewhat how I want to live my life when I get a wife and have kids. I'll work, but my job won't be my passion or my real goal, it'll be my family.
It reminds me of Olhado from Xenocide(Or Children of the Mind, I don't remember exactly which) when he talks to Ender and says he's a career father who manages a brick factory to support himself (or something along those lines).
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I'm all for family, bloodlines being important and all, but I still think there is something clannish about that.
Stein talks all of this family values jive, but when he says: "But I think the best guidance I ever got was from the inauguration speech of Democrat John F. Kennedy in January of 1961." He isn't talking about his father or anyone related to him, that is, unless Ben Stein is really a Kennedy. The most potent figure in his life was a rich responsible stranger at a podium on television.
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Well, I liked the overall sentiment, although the overreliance on military and life-endangering professions as "heroic." Then I changed my mind.
Because he followed those examples directly with this:
quote:The teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children.
Note: Autistic children, as a rule, do not need nurses. And their teaches teach them, not "care" for them. Comparing people who work with autistic children to a soldier dismantling a bomb is kinda insulting and demeaning to autistic children. (rolls eyes, gags, vomits.)
OK, I'm better now.
Other than that, it was a pretty good article that could have benefitted with a couple of references to poor families struggling to find affordable housing or decent health care.
But he is Ben Stein, so that's probably asking too much. Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Hey, teaching each other is a two way street, Farmgirl. You wouldn't believe how helpful you and so many others have been in a bunch of different ways in the time I've been here.
And, just to get back to Stein, this is what I will remember most from his article:
quote:I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.
That sentence really grabbed me. I will remember it a lot longer than whatever he wrote about autistic kids. Especially because I think he means what he says here.
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