To the Editor:
The editorial column "Planet Hollywood" (July 19) criticizes the "decadent and materialistic" society we live in and the unworthy attention given to celebrities. While I hate that stuff as much as the next guy, it hardly seems like a new thing at its core.
Sure, mass media has accentuated the power of celebrities more than when we didn't have televisions, and it's pretty silly.
But it seems to me that ultimately, celebrities are just people well known for their well-known-ness (to paraphrase Daniel Boorstin) and are forgotten just as quickly as they come to fame.
We don't remember the celebrities of one hundred years ago, nor will anyone remember the celebrities of today one hundred years from now. But they're certainly going to remember some version of the serious issues that our society is dealing with today.
It's a bit idealistic to want a society without any of that stuff. At some point in the day, it's fine for people to care more about John Mayer than John Ashcroft.
In time, the unimportant stuff washes away with hindsight, and even if we aren't paying attention to the real issues now, we certainly will have to later.
