Sociology

Raisins may be the best part of a cake but a bag of raisins is not better than a cake and someone who is in a position to give us a bag full of raisins still cant bake a cake with them, let alone do something better. (Wittgenstein, 1980)

This quotation was lifted from a book entitled Culture and Value. The book was fairly outdated but the ideas that were written on its pages were all too valuable to be set aside by modern society. Even after 3 decades of being overused, it is still applicable to the context we have right now. The statement above is true for all types of idol worshipping that happens around the world. In a whole cake, we seem to pick out the part where the raisins are, because these scarce resources make the cake more interesting. Without the raisins, we are left with a dull, blunt cake. But raisins are only interesting when they are sprinkled in a cake. It will not interest you either when you are given a sack of these instead. And for today, we are going to talk about the few raisins in the cake of the universe the outliers who have been swimming in a sea of fame all throughout their lives and the challenge of prolonging it until such time that they are ready to vanish from the face of the earth.

We were all born in a time where Hollywood becomes Mecca and the movie stars were praised like the Gods of Mount Olympus. We have this crooked outlook  regarding these people as beyond human prowess that we must be able to commend them for the good job they are doing. In this case, we see that the process follows a Jurassic lineage from fame to the tragedy of death and dying. We are all captive audiences to this real-life drama that unfolds right before our eyesthanks to the tabloids spilling out the beans.

The beginning of this idol worship stars from the conception of an outlier, someone who is perceived to be an admirable person, someone who possesses what others do not have. After we have found this person among the billions of people residing in planet Earth, we begin the lifelong following of his life. In an instant, his privacy is suspended and everything about him is suddenly of public interest since he has been transferred to the public sphere. Like how Barrack Obama was able to snatch the presidency by first promoting himself as an underdog. If he was not black, would he have won the sympathy of the millions of the American population during the 2009 US Presidential Elections Critics are saying that he would not have the chance to sway the voting public without being black. The circumstances called for it the masses want someone they could relate to, someone that came from their ranks. And this black person symbolized that humble messiah that they needed in order to emancipate from the kind of life they have at the moment. This is the beginning of fame. And this is where everything starts.

The story of Michael Jacksons life is another sensational example, but still appropriate to the discussion of fame, death and dying. The entire world grieved over Jacksons death because he was in fact a famous music icon who aimed to make the audience happy and their time worthwhile. Why, during the death of other musicians such as Luther Vandross, thee world is not as grief-stricken as they are with Jackson While both musicians came from the black race, Van Dross and Jackson died in very different ways. Although they are both famous, Jackson died a more mysterious way. Some would call it even scandalous for Jackson was thought to have taken an overdose in forbidden drugs. As we all know from our sociology classes, the populace is concerned with the mystery that underlies in the fame of people. We are interested, glued to those famous people because we want to be at the forefront of the society when it discovers the hidden self of the artist.

This assumption is further proved by the most mysterious deaths still being revived through stories even years and decades after the subject already died. Kurt Cobain is still a very much alive figure even though it has been years since he died. The Beatles members John Lennon and George Harrison are still being talked about up until now because it appears that some Beatles songs already forecasted their tragic deaths. Even their CD cover for Abbey Road was interpreted as the announcement of McCartneys death as he was out of step. As stated above, it was in the mystery of these icons that people become interested in following them. And this further makes us believe that icons are supposed to keep this anonymity and suspense brought about by their mystery veil in order to keep their fame.

In the discourse of Michael Foucault, it is perceived that the dynamics of fame, dying and death is all but a discursive formation. That is, Foucaults work in the social construction of subjectivity has been an important contribution to  political philosophy by providing a conceptual framework in which to understand the intersection of moral agency and coercive ideology. (Atkins, 2005) Meaning to say that there is a subjective idea of social construction since it is almost impossible to reach a unified decision on what meanings must be attached to things. You will notice in the next quote that different period in history will call for different meaning attached to the same symbols. If we will discuss the semantics of fame and dying, we will realize that a certain symbol can elicit various meanings because the meanings are only social constructs and it is only derived from the culture of the society.

In a way, it is culture which governs the way people perceive symbols and the way they derive meanings. That is how the system fame and dying works in a world of uncertain meanings.
In a way, Foucaults genealogy shows that subjectivity has not been the same for every age, and that the idea that there can be direct unmediated apprehension and understanding of the self or subjectivity through introspection is deeply mistaken. (Atkins, 2005)The age of which the author is talking about is the different perceptions that people have a certain symbol. In time, these meanings will drift away and be replaced by another new meaning made from the social construct of a particular society. When this replacement happens, the culture of the said society is also perceived to evolve.

The philosopher perceives the forms of subjectivity as determined by the rationality embedded in the discursive practices of the times and the subject-positions they articulate. (Atkins, 2005) In many ways, the meaning is time bound and is context-specific. Each process of death, each kind of fame that a person receives is perceived very differently despite being almost the same when compared to another death or fame. At one point in time, you will encounter an event where two similar fame evolutions will bear different conclusions. And the people are not to be blamed because their practices are only determined by how they are being instructed by their culture and religion at that point in time.

In Atkins book, she lists down 4 ways on how to characterize the discourse nature. The 4 techniques are as follows
1. Techniques to transform or manipulate things (production)
2. Techniques of sign systems (signification)
3. Techniques for determining the conduct of individuals (domination)
4. Techniques of the self.

Let us go back to the examples that were given above. The productive skills that were taught to these outliers are techniques to build up a good career in their desired paths. In the production stage, every person is perceived to being produced for the mass public. They are ought to be materialized as they are released to the public sphere. And therefore, they must be produced in a way that they are commodified for mass consumption. When this is achieved, people are most likely to hold on to their superstar status until the time of their death. But the thought that their fame stops at their physical death is not true. Since many icons have lived long after they were buried 6 feet under the ground. This end will only be evident if the person is able to achieve the first stage with flying colors.

The techniques of sign system ought to make a symbolism out of an icon and his perceived fame. How was Tom Jones immortalized by the songs he was connected with He was revived as the rock n roll hits were remixed and passed on from one generation to another. In this way, the immortalization lives because of the perceived symbolism of Tom Jones and his Pop-Rock hits. The signification of Jones is evidently successful because he has owned the genre and continuously does so even after he has been dead. In the case of the Philippines, after the bloodless, first Asian revolution happened under the leadership of Corazon Cojuangco Aquino, everybody suddenly was caught in a plethora of yellow ribbons supposedly symbolizing the martyrdom of her beloved husband Benigno Aquino and her faultless leadership and strength in combating the Marcos regime. These are the types of significations that will live an immortal life from the point of conception until kingdom come easily remembered and reproducible.

In the case of Fidel Castro, he was known to the world as the detractor to the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and consequently succeeded him as the head of his Communist Cuba. But Castro established a more personal relationship with the Cubans. As stated in the book Revolutionary Struggle, Castro said that those who killed the prisoners were not worthy companions of their own dead. I saw many soldiers fight with uncommon courage (Valdes, 1972) therefore giving the sense of his increasing participation in the state of his military allies. Castro is master of this technique as he was able to maintain the personality he presented to the whole of Cuba decades after he first assumed office. And I am sure as the sun will continuously rise in the East that even after his death, Castro will become part of Cuba and the ideology of the Cubans who lived during and after Castros regime.

Third is the determining the conduct of individuals or what we simple refer to as domination. Every person in power has at least studied a part of the population is going to be dominated. If this is not done, the attempt to acquire power will be futile for the plan is not well researched. The steps for global domination is well planned, more often studied for long periods of time before any step is undertaken. Domination only happens when there is enough knowledge of the perceived enemy. As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War, you should keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. The rationale behind being that enemies will always be the one who will know what you will be doing in  the next few minutes to beat him. If you are to dominate any part of the society, there must be a well-studied game plan of how you are going to attack this group and make them your subordinates.
Again, relating it to Castro, all he had to do was to analyze what kind of service he can offer Cubans that will be whole heartedly appreciated by them. And in this case, all he did was to antagonize Batista and find out how he will be able to make his regime fall without focusing much of the bad light on his ways. True enough, the well-thought plan worked in helping Castro snatch the power from the hands of the then dictator Batista. And this was all due to his initiative to find out what his countrymen wanted.

Lastly is the technique of the self. There is no one word to describe this technique, however, when you look at it, it seems self explanatory. The self is the only medium of how to make a person acquire fame and power and be buried in soil a decade after still with the fame he seized years before. The only way that a person will be able to acquire fame for himself is through thorough practice of the craft he does and the aim of doing it better each day. In that way, this person (through his self) will be able to execute the needed activities that will catapult him to the fame he wanted to reach.

A hero looks death in the face, real death, not just the image of death. (Wittgenstein, 1980) This is what people see in the icons they look up to. They are like actors or protagonists or hero (as is used above) in the play which is their life. Their death is their close curtain exit. Think of Romeo and Juliet of William Shakespeare. The couple died but their memories still linger to the minds of the people who somehow feel they are close friends with them. This image of glorified death is what retains in the mind of the populace and so, even if the death of the beloved icon is simply ordinary and merely what happens to a common people, the news get filled with it, even getting to the headlines of dailies and news in the television.

Maybe some people would think this is comic, theatrical or even ridiculous because death naturally happens to people famous or not. As Wittgenstein used to say The peoples greatest stupidities may be very wise. Funny as it seems, people harbor preconceptions that either renders them foolish or semi-foolish like in the many rumors of death of their favorite stars. They have been watching their idols life as if watching a fish in a bowl and wanting to be, perhaps, part of this stars life and history, they immerse themselves with the idea of being with them (from a distance or from a television screen at their own homes) until death that we sometimes think that they are actually spreading rumors of this or that star passing away to finally arrive to the famous part where the solid fans can declare themselves faithful until the end.

What is distressing is the fact that media supports this foolishness or more appropriately called cultural foolishness. In the course of history, media has been the cruel disseminator of various nonsense to the mass. They play gods and servers of humanity brandishing their ultimate task that they give information to people. Sadly, the populace have been mislead regarding vital issues because they are being spoon-fed by the almighty media. They are  regarded as passive receivers.

Fidel Castro was catapulted to the fame he gets because of his ideological stance in freeing up Cuba and taking charge of his beloved motherland. He was the kind of hero Cuba wanted to have and he was simply at the right place at the right time. Castro made it clear from the beginning that his only mission is to do what is best for the country where he grew up and loved.

Many reports were released recently that the 83-year old Cuban leader already died from an unknown cause. However, like the famous mysteries underlying the death of those people who were part of the music industry described above, the Cuban leader was also a victim of the fame process which is cast in a shadow of doubt becausein factCastro is still alive and kicking until this day. And many people are now witnessing how the fame process becomes a stressful part of becoming a famous person in the public sphere. Like the McCartney issue being dead and resurrectingor probably being replaced by a seemingly McCartney look-alikeCastro is one with the many famous people who must suffer the consequences of being under the scrutiny of the public eye.

If God really does choose those who are to be saved, there is no reason why he should not choose them according to nationality, race or temperament. Or why the choice should not find expression in the laws of nature. (Wittgenstein, 1980) Every part of the globe has his own set of idols being worshipped by its people. From Mother Theresa to Cory Aquino, to Abraham Lincoln and Kurt Cobain, nobody ever thought that the people who will rise to the ranks of the famously immortal are the most unlikely onespeople who do not seem to have enough vigor to keep- going in their careers but were pushed to the life of the filthy rich and famous because it was destiny who chose them to become part of it. Much of our own icons today were destined to hold on to their shining stars of fame. It was the most unlikely way of getting that elusive dream but it is the best way to do it.

Everybody aims to get a little fame before he dies. Fame is an essential part of living that people cannot help but heed the call of this subjugated dream. The reality is, fame is a covert part of every persons life. And it is up to that person on how he is going to make other people see it and believe in it to make his status a little higher than the common peoples. Fame is an unending process which continues even after death has been reached. It does not end with the physical death of a person. And since consensus about the existence of a second life can never be achieved, there will be no end to the fame cycle. Once a person becomes famous, the process goes on until such time that the generation is born that no one could already trace what made this particular person popular. He is immortalized in texts but not in deedswhich is what happens to the rest of the society now when they regard their national heroes as great.

Social constructs are results of subjectivity of the members of the society who are the people, of course. The ideologies constructed by the society are based on what the moral restrictions are for the period of time. In fact, fame, death and the process of dying are three different terms that are all associated with one prevailing ideology moral codes. What is prescribed is done and what is not might be opposed or adopted. It is up to the people on what to do with these moral codes to make sense of it. Once a person jumps in to the process of becoming famous, the rest will become a continuous cycle of maintaining the status by all means.