I feel Ayn Rand
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For better or worse, I can honestly say that I finally appreciate Rand's contempt.
Filtering out all celebrity-related news might have saved you from that.
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Didn't he tear himself down by living a double life and betraying his family???? The media is one thing - it's contemptible in its gossipy glee but I would have thought Tiger almost handed them his heart to be picked apart.
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Didn't he tear himself down by living a double life and betraying his family????
Er... You could question whatever it might have to do with his golfing, surely? (Hint: it rhymes with "buck hall") It doesn't strike me as an Ayn Rand story in fact precisely because Tiger is no Randian hero, just a bloke who's good at golf who because of the madness of how we treat celebrities has been endowed with the duties of a moral leader. But arguably he never asked for it, although he was certainly complicit by reaping the sponsorship benefits.
I couldn't muster any interest in the story, but I did enjoy reading numerous people writing "Tiger is a cheater!" on Facebook and Twitter because obviously they didn't understand the joke.
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It was connected to his golfing because he was portrayed as a disciplined sportsman and a family man. By buying into his own celebrity status by accepting sponsorship deals he made it more than the golf.
Therefore you can't blame "society" for tearing him down. He played with fire.
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Therefore you can't blame "society" for tearing him down. He played with fire.
Are you saying he wouldn't have been torn down if he hadn't accepted sponsorships? How many sponsorship deals did Michael Jackson have?
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We may be forgetting how puritanical the United States is, though I agree the celebrity and throwing to lions aspects are rather universal.
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I can't understand how Tiger has damaged golf
A game where following a white ball is used as a sex substitute or maybe as a way of avoiding spending time with their partners
"A good walk spoilt"
Tiger gives them all something to aim at
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One of the ironies about the whole Tiger Woods story is that for a guy who had his image so carefully and successfully built should have handled the aftermath just so badly.
And 2 years off golf now? Hard to see what the point of that is.
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Therefore you can't blame "society" for tearing him down. He played with fire.
I'm guessing that many people who have affairs portray themselves as good upstanding family men/women. Portraying yourself as a cheater might be a giveaway.
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Therefore you can't blame "society" for tearing him down. He played with fire.
Wow, I don't know how to respond to that. Oh yes I do...
I still don't give a shit what Helen Clark does with her twat in private with however many consenting adults of whatever gender floats her boat.
And I'm still not buying that she "asked for" impertinent and vulgar scrutiny of her private life the moment she entered public life, and it's all fair game when she's making decisions that affect the private lives and passing judgement on others.
I'd also like to know exactly how Elin Nordegren "asked" to be publicly humiliated?
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I'd also like to know exactly how Elin Nordegren "asked" to be publicly humiliated?
Good point but going back to the original post
The basic theme of it was that most of humanity are parasites who alternately feed off and tear down great individuals, and that society was an obsequious circle-jerk of needy interdependence.
Some of this relates to Tiger but I still think that he walked into this trap and that Ayn Rand's criticism of "most of humanity" is a bit rich.
I agree with you about Helen Clark but she is in no way a parallel to Tiger Woods.
I'm arguing for arguments sake in a way and not doing very well but not Ayn Rand! Nooooo!
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Morals, schmorals: I am feeding the machine because I love the story on a purely 'ohnohedidn't' level. Like, how did he *manage* all that? It must have been so tiring. I read that Uchitel apparently got paid a $15,000 monthly retainer just to corral a bevy of willing women on demand, and this is a common thing in the world of celebrity/sports superstars? Wacky. Our society is... really weird.
contemptible in its gossipy glee
I already know that I suck in fundamental ways, but I laughed for a very long time at the YouTube slow jam someone made from the 'take your name off your phone' voicemail.
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I got hooked in by some of the puns: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hydrant for example but I tried hard for a few days to say "So what?" and "I'm not going to be sucked into that vortex."
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If we buy into the Ayn Rand dim version of the world, then we have to ask whether Mr R. Hide is one of her majestic individuals (he may well think so).
Tried to read Rand once and gave up early on because it was so crappy (but, then again, thus was my experience with Mein Kampf). But, then, I am deeply resistant to any world view which bases its belief system on one book or singular philosophy, from the bible to The Fountainhead to Steiner's take on early childhood education (no primary colours, no primary colours!)
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Filtering out all celebrity-related news might have saved you from that.
I did. I no longer watch TV news, and barely read NZ papers anymore. My only absorption of the Woods story has been through display advertising in public spaces, and I think that illustrates how ridiculous it's become.
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Some of this relates to Tiger but I still think that he walked into this trap and that Ayn Rand's criticism of "most of humanity" is a bit rich.
See!! There you go - this idea that he *deserves* it. That if he allows himself to be worshipped, it's his own bloody fault.
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Are you saying he wouldn't have been torn down if he hadn't accepted sponsorships?
Quite a big chunk of Woods' income has come from the sale of his image, as opposed to his excellence in playing golf.
And when the image being sold turns out to differ sharply from the reality -- that being a commercial-scale arrangement for the procurement and supply of women -- there are going to be some ramifications.
How many sponsorship deals did Michael Jackson have?
Quite a number -- right up to Rolls Royce's product placements in his funeral cortege -- and his nine-year deal with Pepsico remains the biggest and broadest deal of its kind. Pepsi cancelled that in 1993, after allegations that he had sexually abused children became an issue, and he cancelled a world tour and disappeared into rehab.
But surely you're not suggesting that Jackson was "torn down" because of his fame? If anything, his fame kept him out of jail. An ordinary citizen who was demonstrated to have kept children in a locked room full of booze and pornography would not have beaten the rap the way Jackson did, in either a criminal or public relations sense.
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Morals, schmorals: I am feeding the machine because I love the story on a purely 'ohnohedidn't' level...
I already know that I suck in fundamental ways, but I laughed for a very long time at the YouTube slow jam someone made from the 'take your name off your phone' voicemail.
Couldn't we just stick to fiction? Here we are, golden age of television, with an endless supply of beautiful, sexy and scandalous stories... and yet the saddest part is not that we choose "real life", but that we choose to enshrine its stupidest, crassest, most debased stories... and call it celebrity news.
I'd rather we do away with the facade and just put porn in its place.
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I still don't give a shit what Helen Clark does with her twat in private with however many consenting adults of whatever gender floats her boat.
Although I dread to think how many times you've mentioned it ...
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the saddest part is not that we choose "real life", but that we choose to enshrine its stupidest, crassest, most debased stories... and call it celebrity news.
Hyperreality, etc, but I'm not feeling like delving. Where's Giovanni?
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Couldn't we just stick to fiction? Here we are, golden age of television, with an endless supply of beautiful, sexy and scandalous stories... and yet the saddest part is not that we choose "real life", but that we choose to enshrine its stupidest, crassest, most debased stories... and call it celebrity news.
I'm actively hostile to the idea of pretty much anyone famous being held to some standard of being a "role model", but are you seriously suggesting this is new? It's 90 years since Fatty Arbuckle was in the headlines.
I can't say I've picked up a newspaper or magazine to read about Tiger Woods, but it is interesting as a media story.
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But surely you're not suggesting that Jackson was "torn down" because of his fame? If anything, his fame kept him out of jail.
Reminds me of a cartoon I saw at the time he was settling out of court: A father is talking to his son, saying "That's what's so great about living in America, son: any child, no matter how poor, can grow up to become a millionaire... just by having sex with Michael Jackson."
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apparently got paid a $15,000 monthly retainer just to corral a bevy of willing women on demand
That aspect slipped right past me until you mentioned it now. I must be gazing at even fewer magazine covers than Keith.
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Fox News's senior political analyst Brit Hume weighs in on what Tiger Woods needs to do to redeem himself: convert to Christianity.
By that logic, I guess Ted Haggard should have switched to Buddhism.
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That aspect slipped right past me until you mentioned it now. I must be gazing at even fewer magazine covers than Keith.
Ditto - I'd heard "Tiger Woods had a car accident" followed by "Tiger Woods had an affair" followed by "Tiger Woods had multiple affairs" followed by "Tiger Woods had ALL OF THE AFFAIRS", but I'd always assumed he just operated on a "what goes on tour stays on tour" mindset. Damn.
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