Surge Summary: Singer John Legend reminds us: celebrities ought to stick with using their talents to entertain, versus lecturing the rest of us on the cause of the day; and, their personal behavior too often reveals they don’t actually believe what they are crowing about.
by Peter Heck
If there’s one thing everyone loves and appreciates, it’s high profile, wealthy, and pampered celebrities using their platforms to expound on political issues. Who doesn’t countdown the moments until Hollywood award shows roll around so we can all hear Meryl Streep’s take on geo-politics, or Pee-Wee Herman’s views on the corporate tax rate.
For those picking up on my sarcasm, allow me to clarify that I am not suggesting I don’t believe the absurdly privileged in our culture have a right to say what they want to say. But what is conveniently lost in the equation is the reality of why these individuals are high profile celebrities. And without exception, it’s never because of their grasp on the pressing issues of the day.
Telling Steve Kerr to “stick to trying to figure out how to win a basketball game” or LeBron James to “stick to bouncing balls” isn’t attempting to deny them their right to an opinion.
Telling Taylor Swift to “stick to auto-tuning your over-sexualized music videos” or John Legend to “stick to working on your falsetto” isn’t depriving them of their free speech.
It’s speaking truth to power, reminding them that the people who have made them famous didn’t do so because they thought they were profound minds who needed a wider audience to lecture. We did so because they were entertaining. When they lose sight of that and begin concluding that their bank accounts and notoriety automatically confer “public intellectual” onto their resumé, that’s when they start embarrassing themselves and people who happen to hold the views they espouse.
Steve Kerr and LeBron James humiliate true social justice warriors by their galling hypocrisy on the world’s worst human rights abuser China. And John Legend? He does the efficacy of climate change alarmism no favors by crowing:
And:
Why? Because he proves by his extravagant lifestyle that he doesn’t believe it:
Grammy-winning singer and climate change alarmist John Legend used a private jet to take his activist wife Chrissy Teigen out for a quick Valentine’s Day dinner over the weekend.
The local restaurants must have been completely booked up, as the climate conscious couple elected to hire a private jet to fly them 500 miles from their Beverly Hills home to a French Laundry restaurant in Yountville, California.
There, the two dined on caviar, the Daily Mail reported.
I know the well-heeled, rich, and famous among us often harbor great feelings of insecurity. Frankly, I would never want the pressures and anxieties they confront regularly for myself. So for what it’s worth, I would ask they take this as less of a criticism, and more as a humble recommendation from the peasantry:
We have chosen to make you famous because we appreciate your gifts. There’s no shame in that for you. We enjoy watching you use those gifts and think highly of you because of them. So show your appreciation and gratitude by honing and using those gifts to their fullest, and combat the urge to seek more relevance or take up the separate burden of cultural and political leadership. Please – save us the annoyance and yourself the embarrassment.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
This article originally appeared at TheResurgent.com.
Image: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/; https://www.flickr.com/photos/julioenriquez/3184563727
Surge Summary: Singer John Legend reminds us: celebrities ought to stick with using their talents to entertain, versus lecturing the rest of us on the cause of the day; and, their personal behavior too often reveals they don’t actually believe what they are crowing about.
by Peter HeckIf there’s one thing everyone loves and appreciates, it’s high profile, wealthy, and pampered celebrities using their platforms to expound on political issues. Who doesn’t countdown the moments until Hollywood award shows roll around so we can all hear Meryl Streep’s take on geo-politics, or Pee-Wee Herman’s views on the corporate tax rate.
For those picking up on my sarcasm, allow me to clarify that I am not suggesting I don’t believe the absurdly privileged in our culture have a right to say what they want to say. But what is conveniently lost in the equation is the reality of why these individuals are high profile celebrities. And without exception, it’s never because of their grasp on the pressing issues of the day.
Telling Steve Kerr to “stick to trying to figure out how to win a basketball game” or LeBron James to “stick to bouncing balls” isn’t attempting to deny them their right to an opinion.
Telling Taylor Swift to “stick to auto-tuning your over-sexualized music videos” or John Legend to “stick to working on your falsetto” isn’t depriving them of their free speech.
It’s speaking truth to power, reminding them that the people who have made them famous didn’t do so because they thought they were profound minds who needed a wider audience to lecture. We did so because they were entertaining. When they lose sight of that and begin concluding that their bank accounts and notoriety automatically confer “public intellectual” onto their resumé, that’s when they start embarrassing themselves and people who happen to hold the views they espouse.Steve Kerr and LeBron James humiliate true social justice warriors by their galling hypocrisy on the world’s worst human rights abuser China. And John Legend? He does the efficacy of climate change alarmism no favors by crowing:
And:
Why? Because he proves by his extravagant lifestyle that he doesn’t believe it:
I know the well-heeled, rich, and famous among us often harbor great feelings of insecurity. Frankly, I would never want the pressures and anxieties they confront regularly for myself. So for what it’s worth, I would ask they take this as less of a criticism, and more as a humble recommendation from the peasantry:
We have chosen to make you famous because we appreciate your gifts. There’s no shame in that for you. We enjoy watching you use those gifts and think highly of you because of them. So show your appreciation and gratitude by honing and using those gifts to their fullest, and combat the urge to seek more relevance or take up the separate burden of cultural and political leadership. Please – save us the annoyance and yourself the embarrassment.
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Daily Surge.
This article originally appeared at TheResurgent.com.
Image: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/; https://www.flickr.com/photos/julioenriquez/3184563727Stay in the loop on killer content,
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