"The world" is happy, I'm grumpy
Jul. 22nd, 2013 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserIt really annoys me that America is so obsessed with "the royal baby". This is a silly question, but: Have they all forgotten history? The whole revolution we had so that we wouldn't have royalty? I bet most of these people would gleefully put themselves back under royal rule.
The evening news, a 30 minute show. Ten full minutes was spent on the baby. Next story? Plane crash on a NY runway. Got 30 seconds of airtime.
Sigh.
I feel the same way about celebrity babies (and relationships). Why do people care? Do they consider these people better than them, thus they want to know everything about them? I suspect/worry that's the case. Talk about bad judgement... How about wanting to know more about scientists? Why fawn over someone who can throw a football far, instead of over the guy who is working on a cure for cancer?
I know these aren't original questions or unique grumpiness, it's just this whole darned baby thing that set it off. They had a healthy baby? Great! But so did hundreds of other people today.
The evening news, a 30 minute show. Ten full minutes was spent on the baby. Next story? Plane crash on a NY runway. Got 30 seconds of airtime.
Sigh.
I feel the same way about celebrity babies (and relationships). Why do people care? Do they consider these people better than them, thus they want to know everything about them? I suspect/worry that's the case. Talk about bad judgement... How about wanting to know more about scientists? Why fawn over someone who can throw a football far, instead of over the guy who is working on a cure for cancer?
I know these aren't original questions or unique grumpiness, it's just this whole darned baby thing that set it off. They had a healthy baby? Great! But so did hundreds of other people today.
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no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 02:54 am (UTC)FamousIrrelevant.I think America's obsession with the English royals is about an Anglo culture seeking mythic roots, as it were. America doesn't really have the same weight or depth of history that pretty much every other culture does. Our sociomagical focii -- if that's the term I want to use, I'm no anthropologist -- are almost entirely post-1900. We have a handful of culture heroes from before then -- Pocahontas, Squanto, the Pilgrims and Founding Fathers, Abe Lincoln, Billy the Kid who a lot of people don't know more than the name of -- but for the most part we didn't get any mythic figures of our own until superhero comic books. The widespread interest in Anglo royals seems to me to be largely about the semi-divine aspect of monarchs: the pharaoh Ra incarnate, the Japanese emperor of the lineage of Ameterasu, the kings and emperors of Europe crowned by the Pope as his temporal counterpart, etc. etc. etc. American society doesn't have a spiritual, magical, mythical focus nor a connection to the land, and we probably won't for several more centuries.
As for the interest in celebrities... that's a monkey brain thing. We want a connection with the monkeys who have high social status, they make the rules and that will give us better status of our own. Except that society's divorced extremely visible high status from actual effects on our lives, and our monkey brains haven't caught up.
If nothing else, thinking about it in these terms helps me feel less like reaching into the tvs and biting the pundits.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 02:35 pm (UTC)Signed, Former New Mexican
It really puzzles me though that we know so little about our own history. As an historian I am constantly made breathless by the depth and scope of our history and the vast parade of fascinating figures. Our history is even better than an historical novel. But instead we prefer to make and watch miniseries of faux upper class, badly written bs like Downton Abbey.
On the other hand, recall that a large number of people did not want a War for Independence, either because they were out-and-out Tory Loyalists, or because they were neutral in the matter. But you were not allowed by the
fomenters'Founding Fathers' organizations to remain neutral. It really was "with us or against us." If against us you suffered and were punished by our mobs. Some managed to ride it out without losing their property or being mobbed and were able to stay. They still felt fondly about England. English migration to the new U.S. continued too -- your family is an example. I have friends in Maryland whose family came here during and after WWII.Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 07:18 pm (UTC)Considering the way we teach history in schools, unless they've changed drastically in the years since I've graduated -- which doesn't seem likely, given how much has been crushed under standardized testing, STEM-is-best, and budget-cut the arts -- I'm not surprised people 1. have the impression that history begins and ends with white America circa 1500, and 2. can't remember much more than two Presidents and Ben Franklin. I remember sitting in 11th grade history thinking that if I heard the line about Ben Franklin's @#$% chair one more time, I was going to scream.
I mean GEEZ. My dad is still consistently surprised when he mentions anything Roman and I don't have a clue, because by the time I took history all we got of Rome was "they had pretty much the same gods as the Greeks, here are the lists of names and a couple expurgiated myths" and "Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar". My mom didn't know Timbuktu was a real place. Approximately half of all recorded history is Chinese, in terms of deciphered and undestroyed written information, but American students get none of it. My 7th-grade history book had a unit on the Indus Valley, but the actual class did not. No one mentions the African kingdoms, India, Arabia, Oceania, or Asia as anything other than a spice route target and Pearl Harbor... rrgh!
Now I'm not saying that American kids need to know, much less memorize, 10,000+ years and six continents' worth of events. There wouldn't be enough time even without other courses. However, reaching adulthood with the impression that people other than white Abrahamic men did more than sit in huts waiting for European colonization to come enlighten them? IS something that needs to happen.
Er, /rant. ^^()
*personal* history touchstone
Date: 2013-07-23 10:03 am (UTC)Move forward a bit, and you see a young Ellen lying on a burnt yellow colored shag carpet rug-hooking something in brown and orange, watching a royal wedding. I don't remember much more than how pretty she was, and how pretty her dress was, how young she looked, and how horrible I thought it was that all these "not her family" were watching her wedding, how much I would have HATED that many people watching me.
Move forward a little bit more, and you see an older, exhausted, new-mom Ellen in a rocking chair with a baby that refuses to sleep unless held, and then only for an hour or so at a time, watching the news because watching almost any late-night fiction involves things that trigger a great fear. At that same time, a certain ex-princess dies in a car accident, leaving behind a lot of rumors and a pair of sons.
Now, the eldest of those two boys got married, and I looked at possibly two pictures of the happy couple, giggled at the hats worn by some of the guests, and wished them well. I know those boys better than I know many of my own cousins.
I have a fascination with fashion. I don't wear it (jeans and t-shirt ahoy!) but I love to look at pictures of people who set trends in much the same way I like to watch television specials about aboriginal tribes- a fascinating look at a different culture, I simultaneously envy some of the fun-looking stuff and am thankful to not have to suffer from some of the not-fun looking stuff. So I have seen A LOT of pictures of this particular young woman. Her shoes, her coats, the dresses that she wears can be interesting and (nicely enough) she seems to be a human and actually wears clothing I might wear, should I actually ever want to wear something other than jeans and a t-shirt.
Now, that young woman and the young man that she married have had a baby. My Fiancee and I want to have a baby. My daughter is almost old enough, herself, to start down that path. So, yes, I find it very interesting. As a very proud American, I cried hearing about the baby, and I hope very much that he grows up to be as well adjusted and happy as possible.
You see, this isn't some far-distant, unknown and unknowable family having a baby into an impossible situation that triggers a lot of envy and hate. To me, this is a continuation of a story that includes *me* in a lot of ways.
Re: *personal* history touchstone
Date: 2013-07-23 01:28 pm (UTC)"a fascinating look at a different culture"
I can understand that, especially if you like fashion as well (I don't).
and how horrible I thought it was that all these "not her family" were watching her wedding, how much I would have HATED that many people watching me.
I think that is part of it, too. I would also HATE it (oh so much hate) if people paid that much attention to me.
no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 02:32 pm (UTC)Love, C.
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Date: 2013-07-23 02:45 pm (UTC):)
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Date: 2013-07-23 03:38 pm (UTC)Devil's advocate hat on, but who has forgotten history?
The Revolution wasn't so that we wouldn't have royalty. It was because of taxes, and not having representation in Parliament as the British Constitution laid out. King George III was just a convenient propaganda whipping boy at the time, because it's easier to focus hatred on one man than it a nebulous, multi-person body like 'Parliament'.
You see the same thing nowadays, with people blaming the President for the country's financial woes when it's actually Congress who sets taxes and fiscal policy. The President's only role is to suggest a budget and then to carry out the will of Congress.
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Date: 2013-07-23 03:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-23 08:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 12:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-24 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-07-26 01:51 am (UTC):D
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Date: 2013-07-26 02:42 am (UTC)