soapwench | community (Reply)

This is just a brief comment. It's always been my hypothesis that many of our societal woes can find some of their source in loss of community. I think an Anne Cameron (?) story about village clowns in Alaska sparked the idea. If someone in the village was being stupid, like being mean to people or arrogant or something like that, the clown would dress up and follow the person around until they got the point. I think when people have a strong sense of community they feel more accountable. It kind of goes back around to the concept that it takes a village to raise a child. Except we don't have the village anymore. There isn't anyone down the street that if they see my children misbehaving will come and tell me in a friendly 'we're in this together' sort of way. No way, they'll sue my ass or file a police report on my children. The village that exists in Gaiman's "Good Omen's" that the antichrist grows up in doesn't exist anymore. And as I said before, I think a lot of our societal woes can be linked to a lack of community.

Anyway, I saw this on my new favorite blog, and I thought it was an interesting perspective about community. From Waiter Rant (http://waiterrant.net) Strangely compelling stuff. Thanks Mike:

"You know celebrity is an interesting thing. Why are we so interested in their lives, what they wear, who they sleep with? What gives them their power? I mean you have to admit we live in a celebrity obsessed culture. Just look at the J-Lo/Affleck shitstorm.

John Cleese posited an explanation in his television special The Human Face. Basically he said we are designed by evolution to live in small groups, numbering five hundred or so. In our not too distant insular agrarian past we knew every one around us. Famous people in the village were those that had accomplished something. They were warriors, healers, prophets, and kings. Everyone knew their face.

Now we live in megalopolises numbering tens of millions of people. The endless procession of faces we see everyday are, for the most part, anonymous, with out a name or story attached to them. We feel a profound lack of connection to the swirl of humanity that besets us.

But we all know who Brad Pitt is.

He is just a guy who works in the movies but many of us know more about him than about our next door neighbor. We may not know squat about the guy sitting next to us on the subway but we will both know who Brad is. That, in a funny way, connects us. Cleese is basically saying that celebrities, by the virtue of their being seen in the media, fulfill a basic human longing for connection in the global village. We all know them and, by that, they connect us to each other. They cut through the anonymity. Thats what gives them power."

The more time passes, the more I feel like we're starting to live in Shadowrun.