#179
the etiology of fame
La renommée n'est que le souffle du peuple, et souvent malsain.
Rousseau
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
Lord Byron
One of the many things I appreciate about my friend Sarah is her aversion to fame. To me, her unease and disinterest in public life signal sanity, a respectable humility. I share her trepidations about fame. How is it, we often wonder, that fame continues to seduce people into its grip despite the historical dimensions of its curse?
Why is its siren song deathless?
No matter how dressed up and lathered in gold, fame remains a deal with the devil, a Faustian bargain that requires sacrifice and submission to such a degree that it inevitably obliterates the self.
Raskolnikov said it best: Your worst sin is that you have betrayed yourself for nothing.
My interrogation of the desire for standing and glory has often revealed that the motivation is not usually driven by the need for money and material security. Rather, it appears as a pining for something greater, the search not for God but to be a God. The impellation to fame is not a logical one, and thus, I believe it requires a psychological interpretation.
What void keeps this desire alive? What is its élan vital?
Sarah says we must consider the quest for immortality when analyzing the drive to be famous. Indeed, immortality and celebrity have merged. Celebrity has replaced God, at least down here in hell. The North American immortal is an entertainer, a fucking card trick with good hair.
It is difficult for me not to view the pursuit of celebrity as a kind of suicidal impulse. To chase fame regardless of its pound-of-flesh prerequisite is not martyrdom, far from it. But it is a perpetual prostitution, an eternal capitulation to power and its manipulation and tweaks.
The inherent madness of the chase for stardom is rooted in dissatisfaction. The desire to overcome ennui, to be reborn, to be acknowledged. The bourgeois’s existential boredom and malaise make them perfect vessels for this so-called dream.
I’ve long argued that
