Icons and Idols

I've long been intrigued by the tendency we have to elevate those we like to the level of icon or idol.  Our discernment is so often lacking.  We like their music. They score at the right time to save the game for our favorite team. They make a movie, or sing a song we luuuuv!  And before long we've put them on a pedestal so high, their fall is inevitable.

The problem is this: we invest so much of our personal integrity in them, building them up, talking them up, wearing their clothes, their team jersey, listening to their music, that we believe that if they fall, we too will fall, our integrity, our choices might be questioned, and so we continue to support them even when they've done something REALLY stupid.We don't want to realize they aren't so special, they like all of us, fail from time to time.

This morning's news brings Whoopi Goldberg to the forefront.  Irrespective of where we stand on the issue we have someone:

who once stated: "I just know I am Jewish. I practice nothing. I don't go to temple, but I do remember the holidays. Religion is a lot of work, it's exhausting."

now having stated that the Nazi Holacaust wasn't about race but about "man's inhumanity against man." "Whites fighting whites." And then retracting and apologizing.

At the same time, we have Neil Young a well respected musician: 

who at the height of the AIDS scourge announced "You go to a supermarket and you see a f----t behind the f---in’ cash register, you don’t want him to handle your potatoes."

who has now pulled his music from Spotify over someone else's negative comments.

And we have Joni Mitchell supporting fellow music icon Neil Young by pulling her music for the same reason, even though she has her own history of misbehavior and misinformation:

appearing at a 1976 Halloween party in black face as a "pimp-like character" described as a "svelte black man in a zoot suit with matching chapeau, meticulous afro, wide moustache and big, dark shades."

and making statements like "I really feel an affinity because I have experienced being a [B]lack guy on several occasions."

As a culture we've busied ourselves cancelling people based on something they may or may not have said or done, rather than talking to them and coming to some agreement as to how our conflicts can be handled. And alongside this we've lost our ability to laugh at ourselves and at one another.  (Shout out to Ricky Gervais here.) 

What would it have taken for Whoopi to simply get on the air the next day and poke fun at her own ignorance, perhaps even stupidity, saying "I have met the enemy and he is me! I sure blew that one...I was wrong....I was seriously wrong...I offended people by my ignorance and I am ashamed of myself and I will do better."? How hard is that?

How hard would it have been for Neil Young to lay aside his doobie for a minute and call Joe Rogan and try to have a conversation? How difficult would it be for Joni Mitchell to ask Spotify to clarify its position rather than using threats and intimidating tactics?  I personally think too many of us want our positions to be "protected."  We don't want to have to do the hard work of defending them.  We don't want to have to take the time it actually takes to gain an understanding of other people's opinions.  We'd rather just shout them down using the voices of the sheep who follow us to help us.

Pride and arrogance are at the core of being an icon or an idol.  If enough people tell you you are great, you begin to believe it. You think your opinion matters. You become convinced that you are more informed than others. You believe you need to steer people in the right direction without bothering to check whether or not it is the right direction and whether or not it is a kindness to do so.

Whoopi's glaring ignorance on the topic of race shined brightly.  She needs to stop listening to the other ignorant icons, and idols, and to her fan base and take a serious look at the complete lack of scientific support for the biological concept of race, the strong social constructs of race, and the racist nature of the category itself which functions only to inaccurately and unnecessarily divide.

We, the "worshippers" of these icons and idols need to more fully confess our own faults, our own dark backgrounds, our own complicity in developing a false sense of security in them...and we need to stop seeing them as significant.  They are musicians, movie stars, sports personalities, and that is all.  The money we waste that results in the vast overpayment for their skills and the subsequent greed that that develops in these people which continues to feed their arrogance.

Christopher Columbus, George Washington, and others are now castigated for what was largely socially acceptable behavior in their milieu. Someday we will be too. We need to remember that history will judge us accordingly as well, not in terms of what we deem is right, true or appropriate today, but in terms of whatever the social temperament of the day may be.

Might Martin Luther King Jr. finally be dethroned for his reported sexual perversity? Might President Joe Biden be dethroned for a revealed inappropriate touching of younger women? Might you or I be judged when our darkest sins or even simple indiscretions are revealed?  If society becomes radically puritanical what would the judgement be on so many?  Or if it were to go over the the darkest recesses of despotic dictatorial communism how might we be judged?

But take heart, we know how all this ends.  God prevails. His justice will pour down.  He will rightly judge.  I've read the answer book.

And in the meantime, we need to be able to speak honestly and candidly, though lovingly to the matters before us, willingly enduring the scorn and the shame that we might rightly face for the sake of the cross.

Rotarians occasionally recite the four way test:

We might do well to consider these questions in our conversations, as we teach, correct, and admonish one another in a spirit of love and peace.

But it still comes down to that first question: Is it the Truth?  Is it based on scripture, the only authoritative witness to Him who is the Way the Truth and the Life? Because eventually all our actions, all of our thoughts, all of our words, will be judged. Are you ready?