So I have to ask: are we incapable as a human race, a global population, of altruism un-sponsored by celebrity endorsements?
I ask this in light of the recent celebrity mass-appeals to help the citizens of Haiti in the wake of the horrific destruction the country has experienced over the last several weeks. The concept thattransnational civil society can bring peace to the world, ending oppressive dictatorships and preventing genocides, depends on the notion that a community of technology-enabled people across the world can galvanize support for countries to respond to international norm-breaking behavior. In plain English, that people with Internet technology can pressure their respective governments to act against leaders who violate international legal standards.
The problem with this concept is that it forgets that people have to care. When we cared about the Holocaust, we acted against Hitler. When we didn’t care about the Cambodian genocide, we didn’t act against Pol Pot. (There is of course the element of the news media’s role in making the public care through presentation of information, but that isn’t the focus here.)
Now, obviously Haiti’s problems were not created by a tyrant. But the question remains: do we need celebrities to make us care enough to act, and to make our governments act?
For more, see the related Huffington Post article by Philip Seib.
To say that we, as Americans, need celebrities to make us care enough to offer support to other countries in need is not completely wrong, but it is a bit of a stretch. Because so many people become busy and stressed with their day-to-day lives, they have limited recreational time, so instead of choosing to watch the news or read articles online, they instead turn to watching updates about their favorite celebrities and TV shows. It is unfortunate that people would rather see what dress Angelina Jolie is wearing to the Academy awards than the nightly news, but if Angelina announces her support for Haiti in the short interview while walking the red carpet and a portion of our population previously unaware of the Haiti situation is now a bit more knowledgeable, then I don't see a problem with that.
ReplyDeleteAs sad as it may sound, to many people in America today celebrities are role models. They're the people that they see and hear about the most aside from their immediate friends and family, and when you spend more time in front of your computer or TV than with your friends and family, it's even more of a problem. And these celebrities are often more attractive and successful than your friends and family, so its easy to look up to them considering their personal ideals and morals aren't often depicted in the media (unless for bad reasons, and then they're obviously not considered a role model). There's thousands of Americans out there who idolize celebrities the way we used to idolize athletes, war heroes, or politicians. Even more depressing, some of these "celebrities" are just members of The Real World or Jersey Shore.
ReplyDeleteBut another thing is this recent infatuation we have with jumping on the bandwagon to help every possible disaster we can. I hope this doesn't come off as insensitive, but I feel like every couple of months there's another slew of commercials asking me to donate to another cause. And even moreso, there's another slew of facebook event/group invites and chain e-mails doing the same thing. I think that the increasing connectivity of the world because of the internet is exactly what's causing this, and it is a good thing that we create more of a global community, but I hope we can start doing without having to idolize celebrities and listen to them - we should be doing it because we actually care about Haiti when we get that facebook invite.
I think the answer to this question lies in the values of our current culture. I remember right after Haiti a friend told me that some celebrity had donated $2 million. I couldn't care less, but apparently donating to help Haiti had now become the cool thing to do, and the same friend participated in a trip to a bar, where for one hour all the proceeds of the bar would be given to Haiti. Something about that seemed entirely disgusting to me, here people were drinking the night away but could justify their hangover the next morning with the knowledge that they had "helped' Haiti.
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