It could be said that the reason everyone knows Britney Spears is because of technology. Mass media made it possible for something to occur that would not have been possible fifty years previous: the national and international recognition of someone with absolutely no redeeming qualities as a cultural and ideological leader, in that person's lifetime. Now this being the case imagine the virtues that those who attained fame prior to mass media must have possessed. Granted lying is as old as.. well... lying, and it is usually the surest way to any spotlight. The tall tales that gave us King Arthur and Joseph Smith have been helped greatly by the oldest form of mass media, histories. I would say that the passage of a ludicrous amount of time is second only to mass media in distorting and forcing a grotesque personality upon humanity.
Surely there could be nothing more reassuring then the comforting notion that humanity has never bothered with slapping these kind of people down, but were instead quite content to let them have their airy castles while they calmly lived out their lives. It does speak to a seldom heralded, yet invaluable human quality: apathy. Grand, glorious, wonderful apathy! Imagine if people really cared, imagine if the term "tongue and cheek" had never been coined. Imagine if those who fancy themselves our leaders could fathom the depth of our indifference. If they could, we would then be treated to the spectacle of an enormously bloated ego crashing like the Hindenburg. It would be better than the Fourth of July. Perhaps we should have "shun and ridicule someone important day" once a year, nah once a month.
Now I'm not making the argument that everyone of renown is worthless. There is ample evidence that Mozart was a genius with the piano and the pen. That Da Vinci was brilliant with the brush and the square. Now if only we could find a vintage Jesus Water Wine. Or maybe Joseph Smith's groovy golden tablets. But nah.....who cares? Where the hell'd I put my Cheetos?
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