A Michael Jackson World

Michael Jackson was the ultimate celebrity-figure in a world that adores celebrity. Eccentricity of the kind that he exhibited before becoming monstrously obsessive about himself and his inclinations to 'own' often peculiar and often downright macabre possessions only served to enhance his appeal. No one seemed to think too much about his monumental ego evinced by his exhibitionism and his dire need to be adored.

If he was not crowned by the public, then he would simply proceed to crown himself.

And if he represented American royalty, then his offspring similarly inherited the privileges of royalty. Money can buy quite a lot and quite a lot of money can buy almost everything. It cannot buy self-respect, although with his ill psyche he did expend a fortune in altering his physical presence so he could no longer be taken for a prideful African-American.

Irrespective of which, African-Americans lost no time in lamenting their great loss with his self-imposed death, acclaiming him as the bridge between the 'races'. With particular emphasis on the black charlatans whose agenda he served without even knowing it.

This man's outrageously protean adventurism, his great celebrity and failed promise as a human being has inspired many others, those with talent and those without, those with wealth and those without, those with social standing and those without, to emulate many of his excesses. People have fallen in love with exhibitionism, with self-regard, with presenting as being extraordinary when in fact they're all too often pathetically pedestrian.

Everyone wants to disseminate to the entire world how wonderful they feel they are, certain that others will acclaim them finally, for the truly superior people that they are. Dismal mediocrities present themselves as outstandingly worthwhile. A pernicious and all-absorbing
fascination with self owing to self-fabrication and delusion has overtaken common sense.

People stand prepared to present themselves on television programs, revealing their social ineptitudes and personal failings. "Reality" programs abound with people convinced of their superiority. When the truth is they are sadly devoid of intelligence, succumbing to the false allure of the kind of mass populism that would see everyone worthy of admiration, adulation simply because they reveal intimate details about themselves.

No one wants to maintain a discreet and decent social privacy, rather they're intent on giving all the sad and futile details of their intimate lives. How distant is that from intelligent.

Yet here is the wife of the newly-appointed head of the legendary British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, revealing on a Facebook site for all the world to relish, personal details of her husband, Sir John Sawers. What, possibly, could impel someone to such extreme stupidity? Well, the world has become one giant cesspool of stroked egos, convinced they are so extraordinary that everyone else is waiting to hear everything about them.

In the case of Sir John Sawers, and Lady Shelley Sawers, little more need be said. The world is suffering from mass dementia, showing and telling, like kindergarten children on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Mindless twits, all.