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Many people in this world are more famous than me. I guess that means they're better people than me, right? And better than you, right?
I probably don't even need to example some people more famous than me, famous for their positive achievements. Brad Pitt; Bill Gates; Peyton Manning; and so on. If they're more famous than me for good things they've done, that means they're better than me, right? And also better than you, right?
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Seamus McGrenery
It is a seductive idea, but it is wrong. I have written about this here:
http://seamus.mcgrenery.com/2013/03/no-superman.html
The point is that we are all part of an interdependent system. No-one achieves anything without the support of a great many others. You have only heard of Brad Pitt because of the army of writers technicians, actors, publicists movie theatre staff and media people who have worked to make sure you do. They are all doing that because it is in their interests to do so.
The same is true of Bill gates or anyone else you care to mention. Even the scientists who win Nobel prizes do not work in isolation. They are dependent on a scientific community working today building on work going back hundreds of years.
In all of our actions we are faced with a frame problem. We have no way of knowing how the things we do now, or have done in the past, will change the world in the future.
Maybe in a hundred years from now our descendants will marvel at the people who spread electricity generating across the world. Maybe the people they will remember for doing good are the technicians who kept the lights on in movie theatres through wars and natural disasters.
But why do you equate fame with being better period? We might use the word better when comparing two people like-for-like. The fastest runner in a race may be a better runner. I doubt you could find many people, including yourself, who would say that makes them a better person.
All that someones fame can tell you is how famous they are today.
greg dahlen 20+
True, we may not know certainly how our actions will affect the future, but don't you think the human race makes good judgements right now about who is doing the valuable work? Thus the person the rest of us deem famous probably really is doing something marvelous?
I think the faster person in the race might be a better person because they have shown the self-discipline to become the better athlete.
Kate Blake 50+
Please your idea of better is skewered, maybe you need to put more distance between you and Hollywood it seems to eating at you?
Seamus McGrenery
Someone in a prehistoric tribe might get known by all two hundred people in the tribe for heroically saving a life, or being a great hunter. We are equipped to understand and react to that kind of fame, and yes we can say that the famous person is one some way better at something.
Fame has meaning in our lives, at this level. We can learn to hunt from the great hunter, or avoid the cheating trader. It works both ways fame and infamy.
Just over five hundred years ago Gutenberg, who's invention changed our world, was known by few people. So we can clearly see the link between fame in ones lifetime and lasting impact has been broken for a long time.
Take a modern example, how many people are aware of who developed the computer, and how they did it? My guess is that more people will have heard of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs than the people who did the work that changed our world.
Many people have heard of Richard Dawkins, the evolutionary biologist. Yet he has said of the book that made him famous “It is an account not of my own invention, but rather an articulation of neo-Darwinism, a synthesis of the gene’s-eye view that has become the norm among field workers in evolutionary biology.”
Because we are not equipped to deal with fame in the modern sense we confuse it with other qualities.
“Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, riches take wings, those who cheer today may curse tomorrow and only one thing endures - character.” Harry S. Truman
greg dahlen 20+
I'm more inclined to stand up for famous people than you. If we didn't think that famous people had great qualities of character, such as hard work, risk-taking, creativity, wouldn't it turn the world topsy-turvy?