We know Robin Williams. The social part of our brain recognizes celebrities as on par with people we know at work. So, its not surprising the news is filled with his death. Stalin has been misquoted forever as saying one death is a tradgedy, a million a statistic. Curiously, the first person in the West to hear of Stalins death was Johnny Cash. That fact somehow adds a dimension to the story of Stalins (not very tragic despite being individual) death because we all know Johnny Cash and have a claim on him. This not a phenomenon created by news media. I am pretty sure farmer Jurgi in his fields in 1200 AD would have rushed into town to tell everyone the Prince had died. I am also sure it would have briefly usurped the Turnip Blight in local gossip, even though no one had ever met the Prince, even if the Prince was sort of a jerk, and Jurgis aunt had died of tainted turnip the previous week. And as Chris added - Now how would that story go if the voice of the prince was an ever present part of their childhoods, a symbol in fact of hope and kindness and of the possibility of revocability in the face of shattering despair.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 00:37:03 +0000
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