I'm An Original Sinner But When I'm With You I Couldn't Care Less, I've Been Getting Away With It All My Life
--"Getting Away With It", Electronic
I've never been a huge Manny Ramirez fan, but since he was on the Red Sox I always tolerated him somewhat. Even when he was casting disparaging remarks about the team, about the city, or about life in general, he always more than made up for it with his contributions behind the plate. That used to be good enough for me. That used to be good enough for the team.
But recently, I suppose the Red Sox felt he was more of a distraction than a contributor and they dealt him to the Dodgers in a three-way trade. His talent couldn't save him from his reputation, which is an odd story to hear these days. Usually most of the stories one hears is how this celebrity got away with doing something we normal folks would usually find reprehensible. Whether it's driving drunk and crashing their car into a tree or allegedly hitting their spouse with a telephone, we as a culture are willing to forgive more from people we deem to be extraordinary than from untalented people. It's like we're afraid to lose the one thing that makes them special, like they'll take their ball and go home if we condemn them too harshly. We know they wouldn't stop playing, stop performing, stop creating, &c... but we're trained so effectively not to criticize the talent.
Here's my theory--we need heroes. We need to elevate people in order to elevate ourselves. People like Manny get by in this world because without someone to aspire to, without someone to emulate, we would be rather lazy. It's all well and good to try and be the best person you could possibly be. However, if you never get the opportunity to see how good the human species can be, then you'll never really push yourself to your limits. You need to know how good singing can be, you need to know how great a building can be built, you need to know how much more than anything else you've ever seen in your life something or someone can get. It's hard to set goals for yourself, if you don't know how much further things can be taken. That's what celebrities do; they get famous for setting the bar higher. They get accolades for furthering the human cause. Without them we would never adjust our expectations of ourselves. We would never fight as hard or as long as we do.
So we let them get away with their indiscretions. We let them falter without a word most of the time because most of the time their mistakes are our mistakes. But rather than try to knock them down a peg or two, we keep exalting them as much as we did before. We don't want to cut them off at the knees.
Then they'd be just like us. Regular. Average.
We need our heroes. We need our role models. We need something to believe in, even if we don't really need someone to believe in.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
I've never been a huge Manny Ramirez fan, but since he was on the Red Sox I always tolerated him somewhat. Even when he was casting disparaging remarks about the team, about the city, or about life in general, he always more than made up for it with his contributions behind the plate. That used to be good enough for me. That used to be good enough for the team.
But recently, I suppose the Red Sox felt he was more of a distraction than a contributor and they dealt him to the Dodgers in a three-way trade. His talent couldn't save him from his reputation, which is an odd story to hear these days. Usually most of the stories one hears is how this celebrity got away with doing something we normal folks would usually find reprehensible. Whether it's driving drunk and crashing their car into a tree or allegedly hitting their spouse with a telephone, we as a culture are willing to forgive more from people we deem to be extraordinary than from untalented people. It's like we're afraid to lose the one thing that makes them special, like they'll take their ball and go home if we condemn them too harshly. We know they wouldn't stop playing, stop performing, stop creating, &c... but we're trained so effectively not to criticize the talent.
Here's my theory--we need heroes. We need to elevate people in order to elevate ourselves. People like Manny get by in this world because without someone to aspire to, without someone to emulate, we would be rather lazy. It's all well and good to try and be the best person you could possibly be. However, if you never get the opportunity to see how good the human species can be, then you'll never really push yourself to your limits. You need to know how good singing can be, you need to know how great a building can be built, you need to know how much more than anything else you've ever seen in your life something or someone can get. It's hard to set goals for yourself, if you don't know how much further things can be taken. That's what celebrities do; they get famous for setting the bar higher. They get accolades for furthering the human cause. Without them we would never adjust our expectations of ourselves. We would never fight as hard or as long as we do.
So we let them get away with their indiscretions. We let them falter without a word most of the time because most of the time their mistakes are our mistakes. But rather than try to knock them down a peg or two, we keep exalting them as much as we did before. We don't want to cut them off at the knees.
Then they'd be just like us. Regular. Average.
We need our heroes. We need our role models. We need something to believe in, even if we don't really need someone to believe in.
Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers
Labels: Electronic, Manny Ramirez, perception, reform, reputation
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