Our Need to Idolize
In a small way, I think we're all monarchists at heart--as long as we pick the monarchy and can change it at whim. It's when we lose control that we start to panic.The recent death of John F. Kennedy, Jr. started me thinking about who the Associated Press and A&E have called "an American prince." Why does this need to have someone to idolize exist? Where does it come from?
Most of us, if we trace back far enough in our family trees, came from countries ruled by a king and queen. For centuries, those dreams of the glamorous royalty lingered in our collective unconscious. Little girls often grew up dreaming about being a princess. Prince William, especially after Princess Diana's death, has become a common pin-up in middle school lockers everywhere, right alongside the Backstreet Boys and 'N-Sync.
Surely capitalism and dreams of wealth and status are only a part of the equation. Perhaps instead it's slightly masochistic: we all want to be ruled in some way. We want to be told what to do: it makes life easier. This desire to remain passive conflicts with what we also crave--freedom. At least for us Americans, we cannot simply yield the power our ancestors fought for.
Without kings and queens, we have instead found other people to idolize and, without being explicit, they tell us what to do. Instead of the threat of incarceration or death, if we refuse to follow these mandates, we’re simply unpopular--a fate, according to some teens, worse than or equal to death. Millions of women adopted the "Rachel" haircut because Jennifer Aniston had it. A desire to "be like Mike" led to a sports marketing craze: for a while, I could not find a single neighborhood pickup game without someone in a Jordan jersey. Is this that radically different than Peter the Great coming back from France and commanding the men to shave their beards? Well, our adherence to celebrity suggestions is, as we Americans like it, largely voluntary. But the fact that we volunteer to follow someone else is significant.
If there's one thing Americans can relate to, it's personal stories of their celebrities. National Enquirer is not an invention of today's society, but a continuation of Walter Winchell and Hollywood Confidential. John F. Kennedy’s assassination was one of the first to be broadcast on television--remember Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on live television--and combined the immediacy of life with visual cues.
the English people. In a monologue the Prince suggest his intentions for glorification as he
There are similarities and differences in how the authors of “American History” and “ TV Coverage of JFK’s Death Forged Mediums’ Role” use Kennedy’s assassination in their writing. The intended effect of “American History” was to entertain and show how TV news and news in general affects people. In contrast the intended effect of “Tv Coverage…” was to inform readers how John F. Kennedy's assassination affected the news. The author Joanne Ostrow and Judith Ortiz Cofer both use Kennedy’s assassination in their writing to explain how TV news affects people in a community.
A prince should still not worry about his reputation, and be cruel when necessary to others versus showing mercy to everyone. For example, if you let a few bad citizens go without punishment, they will continue to hurt the rest of the people in one way or another. If you choose to punish one or a small group of people who do harm to the community, less people will be hurt in the long run. Furthermore, every prince should be somewhat feared by his people. If you are not feared, as well as show too much compassion, then you will not be
There is three ways a monarch can acquire his domain. Either he can inherit it, or he can create a new one or annexed territories. Machiavelli states that hereditary principalities are less tricky than the mixed ones since newly captured dominion tend to be more rebellious.When one becomes the prince of the favor of the people he needs to keep good terms with them,which is easy. “He who becomes a Prince through the favor of the people should
Society and how our unconscious perceives the pressures of society make us lose our original ideal and make us seek and/or follow power for the sake of belonging to a community. Social pressures make us lose our ideals and force us to conform. We are born into a society with all these rules and social norms that we don’t necessarily agree with. They’ll go on a journey that no one will help them with, because it’s not the norm.
" The Qualities of the prince" A World Of Ideas, 6th edition Lee A. Jacobus. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, New York, 2002. 37-51 The "United States Constitution"
Machiavelli enumerated in his work, different types of princedoms and whether they are bound to fail from the start, simply based on their type and the way they are attained. Those princedoms are either Hereditary, Mixed, or completely New. Hereditary princedoms would of course be those in which power is passed down within a family. Mixed princedoms would be princedoms that are reinvented through
Power is a very interesting thing to hold. Many good-natured men have been destroyed by power and turned away from their morals as a result. When giving a man absolute power, it’s ingrained in the human brain to take it to a new level. This ideal is present in every type of government, regardless of whether it’s a dictatorship or a government supported by autonomy. Modern day government suffers from this power hungry greed.
Niccoló Machiavelli claims in “The Qualities of the Prince” that a prince must have certain qualities that will allow him to seize and maintain his power as a ruler. Machiavelli asserts that these qualities will guarantee the ruler to be able to govern his subjects effectively. According to him, a prince must study the art of war, must understand generosity and to what extent he must be generous to be effective, must choose to either be loved or feared, and be able to keep his word to his citizens according to the situation. These qualities can still apply in today’s politics, and will be useful for a modern time politician as long as they are used carefully.
society and the goal of The Prince is to instruct a prince, or ruler, on how to maintain his state.
Princess. What does the term really mean? Most people associate it with a fairy-tale life. You have everything you want right at your finger-tips. You are perfectly happy and nothing can go wrong. In reality though, is this true? Lady Diana Spencer was seen as a perfect, flawless princess. But who really was she? What did the title “Princess” mean to her? Diana secretly struggled with insecurity her entire life, but her determination and compassion shaped the way the world thought of her.
The gossip industry has become popular in the last few decades. Our society enjoys knowing about the lives of celebrities. We obsess over celebrities on gossip websites, and even obsess to the extent of stalking these celebrities. This industry has impacted our culture immensely. It has tainted our culture in several ways from creating bad role models for our children to making stalking an everyday affair; either way, the media has changed our society greatly. The gossip industry has brought new entertainment for our pleasure, but it has come with negative consequences.
feel that a Prince should mistreat the citizens. This suggestion is only to serve the Prince's best interests.
So are stories that reaffirm our humanity and the resilience of the human spirit – the drowned high school student, the 13-year-old boy and the 10-year-old girl struggling to come back to life from the brink of death – and, certainly, the story of an innocent 7-year-old girl shot down during a senseless act of violence. Stories of missing boaters and heroic efforts to find them are news as well. Even stories of aberrant behavior and politicians falling from grace are news. However, as I stated earlier, it is important to supplement TV news with other sources of information, e.g., a reputable newspaper, a weekly news magazine, or a radio news broadcast, for more in-depth coverage, insights gained from different perspectives, and any stories not covered in the television newscasts.
Television and journalism have a relatively short history together, yet over the last sixty years, the two have become increasingly intertwined, perhaps even irreversible so. But this merger is between two opposing forces–one, a mass medium that inherently demands entertainment and the other, a profession most people hold responsible for information, for facts, which, for the most part, are inherently boring. So has television been beneficial for the American people? The people that our country’s founding fathers chose to hold responsible for electing those to be responsible for our country’s government? By exploring the history of television journalism, discovering how it came to be, and looking at current trends in the industry, I only hope to be able to give my own informed opinion.