fahrenheit451:060

Did it all start with the death of Princess Di ? This contemporary globalised penchant for instantaneously memorialising and revering those whose death is accorded prominence or notoriety by the Media. The pre-eminent among the memorialised are those who during their lives had celebrity/artist status  or were in a larger group of civilians killed in urban bombings and shootings. Minutes of Silence and Public funerals are associated phenomena that are no longer reserved for a city or country's recently deceased prominent leader or the victims of say, an airline tragedy. The passing recently of a once famous American Boxing champion turned into a prolonged , quasi-religious Media festival of canonisation complete with a tedious, rubbish " Ode " hastily composed for the occasion by a lacklustre, hack long since bereft of any intrinsic poetic skills or talent.  Quite why those who die by the bomb and bullet in a western city seem to be more deserving of remembrance than say those slaughtered by the thousand fold by ISIS  right across Iraq and Syria, is a moot point. Then again , " deserve " has nothing to do with it. So some guy wrote a lot of great songs or won an impressive number of titles in their chosen sporting profession, so what. People are of course at liberty to feel upset or sad or not and react accordingly in whatever specious, superfluous and hollow manner they choose. They even get to pretend for a little while that it all somehow has a special significance and they get to pretend pray to a Deity they actually don't think is even there. But what spoils it all, this cavalcade of sentimental slop , is the implied and often all too real element of compulsion and conformity required/demanded by those who want everyone to weep and mourn at a given time and for those chosen to be revered. " We shall be observing a minute's silence for those..." and that in the great western,liberal democracies where freedom of choice and liberty of conscience are meant to be paramount. as for me,I go with " Life is hard and then you die ". Any questions?