Amazing. I've actually found a literate, intelligent, substantive take on the Anna Nicole-Smith train wreck. Along the way, it even draws on first person experience to note that her life is not the anomaly many think - noting that very similar dramas are played out pretty regularly on "a Peg Bundy budget." Questions of free choice, social order, and philosophy then enter the picture, without making the resulting essay dull or predictable.
Pretty remarkable, given the material it had to work with. Mind you, if it can be done for Steven Segal's movie Under Siege (see: "No Ditz Left Behind"), it can be done for anybody.
Ok, Joe, I'll bite.
So here's my question: with the choices framed that way, what part of my moral compass is meant to prefer the former?
That was an awesome article.
I keep coming back to the old saying that some people's sole purpose in life is to serve as an example to others. In Smith's case, it's a cautionary tale. We've all heard the stories about aspiring actors, musicians, athletes or what have you whose lives go downhill because they've fallen short of the "big time" and have nothing else to fall back upon. Well, what Smith's story teaches us is that this can still easily happen even when you do make it.
One line did raise an eyebrow, though: "Politics is the study of human order, and a life like Smith's defeats whatever order anyone might try to impose."
Even, say, a shari'a-based order? (Although I do find the thought of Smith and her entourage clashing with Saudi-style religious enforcers to be more than a little amusing.)
Nice article, Joe!
It illustrates what I think is the real clash of ideologies taking place in the world today. On one side are the fundamentalists, who say there is only one truth and one way to live your life, and are prepared to kill or die to enforce it on others. On the other side are the pluralists who say that there may be many different ways to live your life, and there may even be different "truths", in the sense of different glimpses of a transcendental, unknowable truth.
The pluralist view is that, since we need freedom to look for those different ways, we need freedom even to be silly and stupid like Anna Nicole. The fundamentalist view is that Anna Nicole's life is so sinful that it is better to kill you to keep you from living like that.
Now, it is tempting to think that different flavors of fundamentalists --- Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sunnis & Shi'ites, whatever --- who explicitly want to kill each other, are actually on opposite sides. Not really. Those conflicts are mutually reinforcing, self-validating games, that just confirm each set of followers in their solid beliefs. It's really like Harvard vs Yale, Army vs Navy, Michigan vs Michigan State, and Texas vs A&M.
The real enemies of the fundamentalists --- all the fundamentalists --- are the pluralists, since they preach freedom and tolerance that undermines the whole fundamentalist philosophy.
This is the framework to use, if you really want to understand war in the modern age. To understand, and to have the conceptual leverage to figure out what it means to win. To win, you have to help the pluralists win over the fundamentalists.
But the fundamentalists will do anything they can (since their existence is at stake) to turn people to the side of fanatic hatred of some enemy. Almost any enemy will do. If you can't get people sufficiently angry at the American troops, you can stoke the Sunni-Shiite hatreds. It hardly matters, as long as you keep the ordinary people inflamed.
Think about this carefully, if you want to win the GWOT. You have to understand what is going on before you can decide what to do. And this is what is going on.
This is quite a jump from good ole Anna Nicole, but it's as good an excuse as any.
No Beard you fundamentally misrepresent the nature of religious fundamentalism.
Jewish fundamentalists do not care what those outside, Gentile or Jew do. It's trivially unimportant to them.
They would object to things done around them if they have the power, but if they don't (which is mostly the case) they simply retreat into isolation. They simply don't care about cartoons or anything else halfway around the world.
Christian Fundamentalists sometimes do care, and sometimes do not, but rarely (Eric Rudolph an exception) use violence to make their point. Largely because the central figure in Christianity (Jesus) preached against violence and offered to render to Ceasar what was Ceasar.
ONLY the Muslim fundamentalists as a rule use violence widely, and care about what happens on the other side of the world. Cartoons or obscure remarks by the Pope move them to great religious hatred, violence, and frenzy.
Compare and contrast James Cameron unveiling the "tomb of Jesus" with Danish Cartoons showing Mohammed. Relative death tolls and riots and all that.
Your mental model falls apart wrt Southern Thailand. The Islamic Jihad there has cost more than 1,000 lives. There are no demands, no political agendas, simply killing all non-Muslims. To make the whole country under Muslim rule.
Most people look at Anna Nicole Smith and the circus around her sad death and see it as a sad commentary on the culture of celebrity-tainment. Probably nothing more.
Funny, an intelligent take is all I could have ever wanted. What, with this story blasting MSM headlines every moment of every day for the last three weeks.
And yet, I'm still not going to read it =).
Heh-heh! Too true - "It may be that the sole purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others."
Anna Nicole, Brittany, Paris Hilton and so many others. They are endless. The culture of immediate celebrity has made too much too easily accessible. I talk openly about this kind of tragedy with my daughter. So far, it seems to be working.
My favorite example is that of the professional athlete. This should be the way that the owners of sports teams structure the deal to their players. No one in particular, but here is the deal:
The third condition is the sticky one. This is the deal that most pro players have and they blow the deal in groups. The life of the rich and they think they have a right to behave as they choose because they run fast, jump high or whatever. Just stupid.
It is the same for actors and others, once they taste celebrity and the priviledged life, they believe they become endowed to live the life of the royals with no repercussions for their behavior. Which is not true.
I am sad for poor Anna Nicole but sadder still for the infant daughter.
The Hobo
She didn't live long enough to have her St. Augistine moment.
JR (#4)... for the record, Jewish fundamentalists care very much about what other Jews do. In Israel, for instance, some sects have shown that they will resort to violence (not armed, but still violence) in order to prevent other Jews from transgressing their chosen norms.
It is true that there are key Jewish religious taboos that keep lethal violence carefully restrained. Jewish ultra-orthodox sects are a long way from the Muslim record, and would very probably remain so if their positions were reversed, but their record is not 100% clean. Which is why I say "very probably" rather than "definitely."
They are not well liked in Israel, where most of the population is determinedly secular. One of the really interesting moments for me was when a Palestinian bomb went off under circumstances I won't appall you with but which involved the ultra-orthodox. My take-away was the Israeli news article that said something to the effect of "for a little while, we stopped hating them." They were NOT talking about the Palestinians - they were talking about the Haredim (ultra-orthodox)!
Comments on the comments:
Comment #1 from Grim was addressed only to Joe, and I think it might be better matched to a Muslim or a Christian of that grim and common sort that hates the flesh and the Devil. From the point of view of someone of that sort, preferring that all the world should be consumed in fire immediately than that one petty sin be committed, the meaner, smaller, more confined and sterilized life is better, or less hateful anyway. Though different words would always be used to conceal the extent of the hatred at work and the sacrifice demanded, that is what it comes down to: lives in which people never "get above themselves" or dance or have fun at all, or manage to do the really important things that people should do, like have children, and loves and good times worth remembering.
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#2 from Joshua: "I keep coming back to the old saying that some people's sole purpose in life is to serve as an example to others. In Smith's case, it's a cautionary tale."
I think Anna Nicole Smith's life was unique, unrepeatable and hers alone. It does not belong to the scolds. It is not a mere topic for cautionary tales. It was someone's actual life.
Joshua: "One line did raise an eyebrow, though: "Politics is the study of human order, and a life like Smith's defeats whatever order anyone might try to impose."
Even, say, a shari'a-based order? (Although I do find the thought of Smith and her entourage clashing with Saudi-style religious enforcers to be more than a little amusing.)"
If she gets way with it under sharia as much as under our system, she really isn't "under" sharia is she? So that's at least one order, an evil one, defeated.
I don't agree either that "a life like Smith's defeats whatever order anyone might try to impose." Though it places, at minimum, a severe strain on even a moral order that tries - rightly in my view - to accommodate people like her as much as they reasonably can be accommodated.
In religious terms, a life like Anna Nicole Smith's does not entirely defeat a divine order that honors gods such as, say, Aphrodite. There may be wreckage in plenty. Helen can serve as the supreme example of the sexy demolition machine, and Troy as the supreme example of what wreckage may be left in her wake. But it is possible to say, even so, here is a power that has its rights. And there was a woman who departed considerably from moderation and the benefits that she could have had from it, but who nevertheless did not depart from all that is good and properly part of the world.
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#3 from Beard: "Nice article, Joe!
It illustrates what I think is the real clash of ideologies taking place in the world today. On one side are the fundamentalists, who say there is only one truth and one way to live your life, and are prepared to kill or die to enforce it on others. On the other side are the pluralists who say that there may be many different ways to live your life, and there may even be different "truths", in the sense of different glimpses of a transcendental, unknowable truth.
The pluralist view is that, since we need freedom to look for those different ways, we need freedom even to be silly and stupid like Anna Nicole. The fundamentalist view is that Anna Nicole's life is so sinful that it is better to kill you to keep you from living like that."
We have a measure of agreement.
Unfortunately there are words that point straight to sterile arguments, and "fundamentalist" - offered without any definition - is one. "Pluralist" - again offered without any definition - is another.
I am appealing basically to a pagan conception of life in which all goods and gods do not reduce to one big "good" and one big God demanding obedience. That has nothing to do with "fundamentalism" one way or another, or with "pluralism" except in a specific sense you most probably did not intend. To introduce the example most damaging to my own case, you can attend multiple temples honoring different fundamental values personified, and still compel Socrates to drink hemlock for corrupting the youth of Athens with dangerous questions.
Beard: "Now, it is tempting to think that different flavors of fundamentalists --- Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Sunnis & Shi'ites, whatever --- who explicitly want to kill each other, are actually on opposite sides. Not really. Those conflicts are mutually reinforcing, self-validating games, that just confirm each set of followers in their solid beliefs."
I could not disagree more. These are real and desperately serious fights, not at all mutually reinforcing games.
But this has nothing to do with Anna Nicole Smith.
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#6 from Robohobo: "I am sad for poor Anna Nicole but sadder still for the infant daughter."
This I agree with.
People seem to forget that we are taking here about the death of an actual human being - a daughter and a mother, who recently suffered the loss of her son.
It is sometimes appropriate to speak scornfully of people on the occasion of their deaths. Pol Pot earned that. Anna Nicole Smith did not.
That's kind of how it struck me, too, David. But even by that standard, this isn't a moral life -- the reference to "Peyton Place" is to an early American soap opera that focused on adultery among members of a relatively poor community.
If the angel had offered life in a nunnery to balance against Ms. Smith's life, I can why a man might make an argument for a moral compass pointing toward the habit. If he'd structured the argument so the alternative was a long and happy life with a husband and family who would love her and be loved in return, I can see the argument. This formula, though, doesn't offer anything that would suggest the former life as better -- just longer and, if anything, even more desperate.
Yet the fellow asserts that people 'with a strong moral compass' would make that choice; and he reiterates the point later by noting that those who wouldn't have votes that 'count just as much as yours.'
So I'm left wondering what I'm missing here. What part of that life he suggests as preferable is in any way better?
#10 from Grim: "What part of that life he suggests as preferable is in any way better?"
The absence of scandal.
#11 David Blue:
Better to say, the absence of 'sexiness' and National Headlines in the scandal - for there would be scandal among those who knew her, with the kind of life Kern posits as an alternative... just that few outside of the small town would share in it.
Good article.
Well, the Western Civilization, from its Greek side, began with such an issue, I think she was named Helen, Helen of Troy, commented for centuries and then for mileniums.
A psychologist said that success comes to soon for some people, and his/her personality cannot handle it.
#12 from Dave: "Better to say, the absence of 'sexiness' and National Headlines in the scandal - for there would be scandal among those who knew her, with the kind of life Kern posits as an alternative... just that few outside of the small town would share in it."
"Absence of scandal" may have been too optimistic, and "less scandal" better.
Not to scandalize at all is hard, though it can be done, often by inflicting the shame on others. I well remember the old ladies around grandmother's table full of hate and damnation for that abominable "Our Father" song - the Lord's Prayer set to music. That was scandalous too - and by damning it as such, with venom, the good respectable ladies fortified their own respectability with battlements of poisoned thorns.
Scandal with national headlines is more scandalous, and sexiness is hateful in itself and more vile in association with scandal, from a "strong moral compass" point of view. Shame, silence, suppression, fear, despair and ultimate defeat and destruction for the wild at heart would be better.
Prevent anyone from behaving in a manner that might suggest to other (presumably weak) minds that they too might kick over the traces and get away with it, or that even if they didn't get away with it, it might be fun for a while (with "a while" being all we have in life anyway). Cage the beast of lust, and do not feed it! Let universal ruin prevail (and certainly personal ruin, for any number of people that one does not really care about), if only sin is slightly less!
The only options ever are more or less sin, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory (etc.), and since we're talking sex (and the strong moral compass types are obsessive in talking sex), it's all mortal sin anyway and it's a pass-or-fail test.
...
Or, you can junk the whole mad and bad system, and make a fresh start. (Though most fresh starts are worse than the old errors end in utter calamity, as Marxism did.) Or you can try again older ideas that prevailed before this malign mess proved its competitive efficiency. Or anything else you can think of. In a free state, it's your choice.
Anna Nicole Smith really screwed herself up with the drugs. They're no good. And it seems she may have got blasted, that last time, to ease the pain of the loss of her son, who had also taken a chemical cocktail too many, and the combination of typical human grieving behavior and overly destructive chemicals has meant that her daughter will be motherless. Those drugs are really bad.
Other than that though, I agree she did not live a moral or a thoroughly wise life, but Anna Nicole Smith had her good times, and she was a good time for others, and there are worse ways to live. Much worse.
Indeed, look Helen and Paris, they triggered a war.
A history teacher asked himself how to teach the Trojan war and the virtues of Hector, the brother of Paris, when today's young people prefer the latter, who ended up in the arms of the beautiful Helen.
Oh, is that how Paris ended up? ... Though when he was played by Orlando Bloom, I guess so!
The first thing the teacher would have to do is read the tale to the kids so they were relying on Homer not on a gravely flawed movie, that is Troy (2004).
When you can't teach things effectively, because your pupils don't have, or worse have wrong, the classics of Western culture, then educational reform is overdue.
When we forget Homer, the things that he made poetry of don't end, and we don't rise above him by leaving him behind. Rather, we sink to a level more like that of men in his age and region before he spoke, and we render much of the best of our own traditions unintelligible to ourselves. We become more like ignorant barbarians.
Helen stands for something perennial. Our awareness of this, and many other valuable things, is perishable and maintained only by effort. Though listening to Homer recited in a good translation shouldn't be a painful effort.
Grim,
The answer to your question comes from challenging the premise. A life as a waitress, but still without a moral compass, would indeed be desperate. The author sees cases like it every day.
But a person who values the right things will make different decisions, using different criteria, which will help her even if she isn't in possession of a high IQ score. She is therefore much more likely to leverage good looks (a form of real power, and one that changes your breadth of choices in life) into something a happy marriage with kids and of course all the heartaches life offers - but also many of the true joys.
At the end of that particular rainbow is a life confronted and lived well, and a form of contentment in later years amidst the inevitable regrets and heartache.
As opposed to dying before 40 of excesses that put a strain on your body, and of a broken heart amidst a life gone empty. Leaving a baby daughter behind as inadequately defended prey.
If you want to test someone, goes the saying, give them power. Ms. Smith's looks gave her power, and it's a form that cannot be taken away by mere edict or structure. With power comes the ability to go after the things you want.
Dogs chase cars, too. When they catch one, however, can they drive?
David Blue, believe me, it is very very difficult to explain the today's teenagers I know that Helen and Paris (or Anna Nicole Smith) did something wrong.
J Aguilar, I believe you.
As a singer/songwriter/psychologist, I see it this way:
Hole in the Soul
(of Anna Nicole)
Dr BLT © 2007
http://www.drblt.net/music/AnaNicole.mp3
And, BTW, if any of you hear rumors that Howard Stern is trying to purchase the rights to this song, these rumors are totally false.