[lbo-talk] Celebrity gossip

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Thu Oct 28 13:04:31 PDT 2004


Deborah:
> This is offensive. Is that what you were going for? Comparing
> everyday spectator activities to deliberate acts of violence?
> Comparing conventional and socially accepted forms of entertainment
> to "forms of entertainment" that are signs of various severe
> psychological disorders?

Accepted by whom? All of the examples on my list are socially accepted by different groups as either activities themselves or at least as spectacles. Hunting is accepted as both activity or as a spectacle, while other forms of violence are accepted at least as a spectacle - just check the lyrics of rap, hip-hop, or punk songs.

Lest you miss my point altogether - this was my tongue-in-cheek response to some previous comments that celebrity watching is just fun. By the same logic, we can "explain" any behavior as "just fan" without saying anything about the actual cognitive processes underlying that behavior. We can equally "explain" that behavior by saying that people "chose" or "prefer" to do it, some prefer to be poor, other prefer to be rich, and still other to prefer to have fun. Got it?

Wojtek



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