"I don't understand why people get so worked up about what celebrities say or do?"
"When have you understood anything?"
There...the stage was set as usual! Things have come to such a pass that I'm actually happy when the first insult has been hurled my way. Otherwise, it is like that Chinese torture where the victim suffers the torment of not knowing when the next drop of water will fall on him. I am so on tenterhooks about when I am going to be insulted that it is actually a relief to hear the insult.
"That's all very well," I said, "but why do people do that?"
"Well, you mutt!" said my friend cordially. "People like feeling that they are important. Unfortunately, most of us are not and, what's more, we know it."
Well, so what's new? Not all of us can be moving and shaking the world. The world will shake to pieces if we did that, considering how little consensus there is about what direction to move and shake it in.
"So?"
"The next best thing is to feel superior to someone who you think has become important, no?"
"To do that, you would have become important yourself. If you can..."
"Not really! To become SOCIALLY important, yes, you need to be more rich or more famous or both in order to feel superior. Anyway, pulling celebrities down on social media is not going to make you socially important...unless you already have some element of celebrity already. THEN you can use this to build on your existing celebrity."
"But I'm not talking of..."
"...existing lesser celebrities but of ordinary folks, I know. The point is that, if you cannot claim the social high ground, you can claim the intellectual high ground, perhaps."
"Become a scientist or..."
"Huh! Nonsense! Start making fun of a Alia Bhat for not knowing the PM of India, say. For as long as it lasts, you can feel comfortably superior to a celebrity."
"But...but...she probably knows now..."
"Idiot! I am not giving you guidance on how to do it now. Only an example of how it works. You can make fun of Shilpa Shetty, say, trying to learn how to treat a pet dog by reading Orwell's 'Animal Farm'; or Tom Cruise's scientology beliefs...anything that makes you feel that you are more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more rational than these celebrities. Makes you feel a warm sense of importance which you probably do not feel by showing up the same lack of knowledge in, say, your nephew."
"Hmmm!" This was intriguing. I mean, I was sort of resigned to feeling unimportant in the general scheme of things but it looks like I was missing a bet. I really was, you know. I mean, why did it not strike me that I knew of these people and their comments because THEY got publicity by criticizing celebrities. There...this was interesting!
"Any other way?"
"The thing that most people find the easiest. Take the moral high ground!"
"Moral high ground? That's tough, no? I mean, I have got to be moral myself..."
My friend started laughing hysterically. When he was done, he said,"Are you the celebrity? Who knows anything about you?"
You know, that never struck me! What would anyone know about me? There was no way they could call me out for hypocrisy. This moral high ground business would be a piece of cake, really!
"How do I..."
"Simple! Any celebrity will have character quirks - rude, arrogant, wishy-washy, you name it! Otherwise, you have the lifestyle things - anti-climate change for using cars, not being vegan, say...things like that. The easiest is language...almost all may end up using some words that can be racist, sexist, whatever..."
"Those are all real issues, no?"
"They are, yes! But do not confuse morality with the moral high ground. All of us have moral imperatives but almost all of us fail them in some form or the other. Do all of us do nothing that adversely affect climate? Are we all conscious of all the words and metaphors which may have originally been racist, that we never use them? To lack moral intentions makes you immoral. But to look around to judge and criticize people based on such things, whether they intended it immorally or not, is to try to seize the moral high ground."
Aha! Now I knew what to do. But...
"Does this work only on celebrities?"
"Haven't you see it used daily? It works on anyone and people tend to use it on almost everyone who they see as better than them. That way, they can keep up a semblance of personal superiority."
He looked at me speculatively.
"Well, as far as you are concerned, you can use it on everyone. Hard to see you being able to consider anyone as being inferior to you."
"Oh, Yeah? Then why is it that you are always trying to seize the intellectual high ground on me?"
"Touche," he said.
YAY! For once I had the last word in an argument!