You go to a music concert and the singer lectures you on politics in between songs. You watch movie award ceremonies and the actors lecture you on politics while accepting their award. You go on YouTube or Instagram or Twitter and celebs real and self-imagined are lecturing their followers on politics.
Is this a good thing or not? Are these people qualified to be political pundits? Is that the time and place for these lectures? Do you care about their opinions? Then again, why shouldn't they use their platforms to give their opinions, after all it's their right. Many come to the defense of celebs acting this way. So what if Kim Kardashian or Taylor Swift or Robert De Niro add an impassioned lecture in the middle of their performance? Isn't it a good thing to see they care and are so involved?
To answer that question, perhaps envisioning a world where this principle was consistently applied is in order:
- You board a 10-hour flight and the airline captain uses their platform to lecture politics to the passengers during the flight.
- You are getting a root canal and the dentist uses that platform to lecture you on politics while you sit in the chair.
- You sit down at the nice restaurant and the waitress uses her platform to lecture you on politics while also telling you the specials of the day.
- You welcome a plumber into your house to fix a toilet and while he works he uses his platform to lecture you on politics.
- You are stopped for a traffic infraction and the police officer uses the vehicle stop as a platform to lecture you on politics while writing out your ticket.
- You drive-thru for fast food and the voice through the speaker uses the platform to lecture you on politics while taking your order.
How would you react to these situations? Would you rush to defend their right to give their impassioned speech? They have an opinion too. They have a platform. And they certainly are equally qualified as some rich actor who gets paid to read lines someone else wrote for them.
It would be nice to see consistency. If celebs are allowed to lecture us, then everyone should also exercise their right to use their platforms in the same way. Let's see how that works out.
An interesting inquiry I think. What is a platform but a foci for attention? And important for group bonding and survival, a trait humans excel at. Some argue is responsible for our very survival. Up to now. When it runs headfirst into distributed media and mutates into something else.
ReplyDeleteInto something that irritates the immune system of self. Inflames it, so to speak. It's the challenge of these opinions of others that they want confirmation of. And if one does not give confirmation, they become more insistent. Threatened, even. Ready to outcast you as a non-x. Whatever their x may be.
This fascinates me too amigo. But I've always assumed if someone is lecturing me, then they have opened the arena for me to lecture them in turn. Because I believe, we all have sovereignty of being. And we're all doing the best we can :)