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The Logos of Chris Rock
Viktor Frankl liked to quote Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Frankl believed that a great deal of the failings of people and societies was due to the loss of meaning in our lives. Something more important than us, that gave us a reason to continue to live the best life we could – a glorious, righteous struggle against long odds that gives one an easy answer to the eternal question, “Why am I here?”
Frankl observed, “Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” He said that more than 50 years ago. I think that our world of social media, video games, drug abuse, and sexual chaos would horrify Dr. Frankl. But I also think that he would be very curious to see how people would respond to being placed in a state of such material wealth and spiritual poverty. I think that Nietzsche and Frankl would be particularly fascinated by Chris Rock.
Mr. Rock is an American comedian who has made an incredibly lucrative career out of being black. He can be very funny at times, but so much of his schtick is based on race that it’s hard to imagine what he would joke about if he weren’t black. This creates an obvious problem: If it’s such a hardship being black, then how did he get so rich by being black? I think this is one reason his routine hammers the discrimination against blacks so much. Without that, then why are we laughing at these jokes? But I think there’s more to it than that. And I humbly suggest that Nietzsche and Frankl would likely agree.
I think that one of the reasons that so many celebrities seem so odd is that they know, deep in their hearts, that they went from waiting tables in Malibu to making millions on a sitcom due to, largely, blind luck. I think that one reason that guys who become millionaires in the business of, say, residential light fixture manufacturing, is that that guy understands why he’s rich – he by God worked for it. The light fixture guy is comfortable with his position and doesn’t feel the need to convince others of his personal virtue by preaching about climate change or transsexual rights every time he climbs into his Porsche.
But celebrities realize that they woke up one morning in a remarkably privileged position through little fault of their own. Were they really that much more talented than the other 500 people who auditioned for that part? When they got the role, who knew that the show would hit it big, and they’d go from $5,000 per episode to $1,000,000 per episode in two years? Have they really earned their money? How many people have they helped, to earn their millions? The light fixture guy goes to bed at night knowing that thousands of families are enjoying their safe, well-lit, affordable homes today because of his good work. The sitcom actress wonders, late at night, how much her work has really helped the world.
So she becomes a spokeshuman for PETA. She spends her time and efforts on animal rights. She didn’t have a purpose in life, so she creates one. Frankl would understand. He even wrote a book about it: Man’s Search for Meaning. She gives speeches, saying her life wasn’t whole until she understood the plight of livestock. It sounds funny but her statement is actually very insightful into the human condition.
When Jussie Smollett faked his hate crime by paying his friends to pretend to attack him because of his race, I thought to myself, “Absolutely no one will care about this. No one got hurt. He’s a second-rate actor no one has heard of. Fake hate crimes are common. No big deal. Tomorrow, the news reporters will go back to whatever they were writing about before. It’ll be like this never happened. Which is entirely appropriate.”
Man, was I wrong.
Mr. Smollett was a hero for a few days. He was praised for his courage and integrity until the police investigation discovered that he had staged the attack himself. Then all heck broke loose.
Right-wing news sources were upset, of course, but not any more so than they typically were about typical conservative-bashing. But the left wing – they went bonkers. CNN, AP News, The Washington Post, and everyone else ran one story after another about various aspects of how awful his actions were. Leftist Hollywood types were standing in line to denounce Mr. Smollett in front of whatever audience they could find. Even Rahm Emanuel went off on Smollett. I didn’t understand.
And then Chris Rock weighed in, and I think I understand now.
At the NAACP Image Awards, Mr. Rock said, “What a waste of light skin. You know what I could do with that light skin? That curly hair? My career would be out of here. [Redacted] running Hollywood!”
I found it remarkable that someone who had made such a lucrative career out of being black was suggesting that he would have been much more successful if only he were not black. What a strange thing to say. What a stupid thing to say. But I’ve heard Mr. Rock interviewed a few times and I’m convinced he’s not stupid. I think he’s extremely intelligent. So why would he say something like that?
Mr. Rock viewed Mr. Smollett like the Wizard of Oz viewed Dorothy after she pulled the curtain back. Mr. Smollett didn’t just embarrass Mr. Rock – he threatened to destroy the foundation of Mr. Rock’s very lucrative career. And this transgression was made even more unforgivable by the fact that Mr. Smollett’s career was based on the very same thing as Mr. Rock’s. Would Smollett have gotten his role on the black TV show “Empire” if he were not black? Of course not. Mr. Smollett had exposed the lie behind Mr. Rock’s means of attaining such a privileged life. Such a person cannot be engaged in debate in a public forum – the debate would destroy everyone involved. So that person must simply be discredited and destroyed.
The left responds similarly to anyone who challenges their ideas. Because they know that their ideas are based on, well, not much of anything.
Why has the lawsuit against Mark Steyn gone on for years, simply because he disagreed with climate change tree ring data? Why was North Carolina punished by moving major sporting events to other states because North Carolina had not passed leftist laws regarding transsexual bathrooms? Why was the Colorado baker nearly driven out of business for referring a gay couple to other bakers to bake the cake for their wedding? (A wedding which didn’t even happen, because the gay couple had broken up by the time the lawsuit was initiated.) Are tree rings, transsexual bathrooms, and gay wedding cakes really that important?
No, they’re not. And the left knows it. But if they were important, and if the left really believed them to be valid and true, they would engage in public debate to try to explain why their points are valid. They know they can’t do that, so they engage in the politics of personal destruction. It seems vicious. But they really have no other choice.
As Nietzsche pointed out, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” And in my view, if your “why” is simply the acquisition of power and privilege at any cost, then your “how” is likely to be dangerous.
Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas could explain this phenomenon better than I.
Celebrities understand that their privileged status is largely due to good fortune. The problem is even worse for black celebrities – they are privileged largely because of their good fortune to have been born black. Despite their efforts to add meaning to their lives by adopting causes like animal rights, they have a sneaking suspicion that their enormous successes are based on something that’s not real. Thus, anyone who pulls back the curtain must be destroyed.
Leftists gain power by promoting ideas that they know aren’t real. So they respond to debate on those ideas the same way Mr. Rock responds to Mr. Smollett. Which you know, if you’ve ever tried to debate any leftist on, well, nearly anything.
This makes debate essentially impossible, which makes our politics an absolute mess.
Conservatives miss the polite sophistication of Ronald Reagan. We find Donald Trump’s eagerness to engage in ideological mud wrestling to be distasteful. But Mr. Trump is not the creator of our modern society. He is a result of it.
I’d love to hear what Viktor Frankl would think of all this. It’s hard to say how it will work out over time. But I know one thing:
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Published in General
Now I’m depressed. Good thing I don’t drink. There isn’t enough booze in the world to wash that thought away.
I’ve failed in my efforts to drink that thought away myself. But not for lack of trying.
Marvelous insight. You’re very close to (what I hold to be) the root of the problem.
I like Chris Rock too, a few minutes at a time. I agree that he’s quite intelligent, at least two standard deviations over the mean. It can be hard to tell with, say, actors and actresses. James Wood and Nicole Kidman (iirc) are extreme IQ outliers, for instance, yet they don’t seem cursed by the isolation of the severely gifted. Maybe that’s because actors don’t have to execute their skills in interaction with normals; their vocation allows them space to prepare then deliver their performance. Comedians have to interact more directly with the mass at the mean, and so would be crippled by a gap much higher than two sigma.
You should take it up. It works pretty well for me. Even allowing for hyperbole, you’re wrong about the power of properly titrated and well presented booze. Dude, there is a lot of great drink out there and it works better than … other things.
Hey @midge, didn’t you try to get me to take up Vicodin once? I appreciated the effort although painkillers aren’t to my taste. Maybe you can help me nudge @arahant in a more positive direction.
I do not like the new font. Not one little bit.
There needs to be more intelligent commentary of Donald Trump that is cognizant of that all important sequence.
I don’t think that’s a major reason. It might be a reason.
Peer pressure is another. Amid a culture of competing charitable and political causes, someone without such a clear devotion might feel like a slacker or an outsider. One’s devotion can be heartfelt or it can be social capital. Even church-goers united by a common faith can feel compelled to “compete” by announcing their particular devotions.
But the natures of the two professions might bettet explain the difference of public behavior. The fixture guy’s business is mechanical. The business of actors is moral. Stories, good or bad, are about moral conflicts and moral choices. So anyone working on the non-technical aspects of films is understandably in the habit of thinking about moral problems. Lyricists often have similar habits.
Actors and musicians furthermore, as celebrities, are in a business that favors self-promotion. They are the products, to some extent. People see a movie because it has that actor or that director.
Not everyone who often focuses on moral quandaries is good at it. But I don’t hold it against celebrities that their opinions are amplified by the media people who constantly hound them. It might even be that sensible celebrities are as prone to sharing publicly as the nuts, but lefty journalists only publish the nuttier comments.
I agree with your broader point that people without prescripted meaning and devotions create their own.
Race and victimhood are part of a materialist philosophy/impulse that is responding to the death of G-d. Without G-d, family and community to give you meaning, you become obsessed with communism or race or some silliness. I wrote a more in depth post explaining the importance of meaning with regard to socialism but I think the need for meaning precedes all the socialism/Hollywood nuttiness stuff.
I have a very strange biochemistry. My reaction to alcohol is not normal. However, caffeine works for me like alcohol does for most people.
*Raises very large mug of tea.*
Cheers.
Doc, I’ve never understood why we would need anything more than life’s daily satisfactions: crawling into bed and curling up to your wife to get warm, the satisfaction of producing a nice piece of art, walking the dog and laughing at his frantic sniffing at every little thing, the taste of a hot bowl of homemade soup, a hot cup of coffee in the morning, reading a novel so good that it keeps you awake, and a cool wind on your sweaty forehead.
After delivering a good lecture that engaged my students, I would walk out of the classroom feeling good about myself. Kind of mellow, in fact.
Why do we need more? Do you need more?
My definition of freedom is the right to choose my own logos.
My definition of authoritarianism is a government that tells me what my logos will be.
Your version sounds absolutely lovely. It’s wonderful that you are free to pursue it.
Many in this world are not.
Speaking of stupid. The phrase “light skin” for Chris does not mean “not black”. That should be obvious. Your second hint was the context of Jussie, who has lighter skin than Chris, but is still considered “black”. Humans come in all shades and colors. In many countries different shades are considered advantaged over others.
Also, Chris Rock is one of the funniest people alive. He would be funny in any hue.
PPS, Chris Rock was also the guy that called out Cosby, which led to his jail time.
Chris Rock used to be funny. Once he got woke, everything became derivative, predictable and preachy.
Don, I agree.
As I said in my post, I think Mr. Rock is very funny, and very intelligent. I think that’s what upsets me about all this. He doesn’t need the race-baiting angle to be successful like, for example, Jussie Smollett. Mr. Rock could succeed on his own. That’s why I find his response so offensive.
I’m not sure how much impact Mr. Rock had on Mr. Cosby’s conviction. I personally suspect that if Mr. Cosby had not spoken out about flaws in black culture, he would still be a free man. Hard to say, of course. You may be right.
That is exactly 100% true.
I highly recommend Diamond and Silk’s discussion of this topic. Trust me, it is epic. LOL
Got it. I’m drinking for two.
Let no one say that the Boss does not continue to render service for his country despite being retired from the military.
Amen!
It’s a humorous because it’s true. Like most good comedy it highlights something we already know.
Chris Rock is a funny guy. Though I find his funniness tedious after five minutes. Eddie Murphy was far more entertaining.
Actors and actresses make a career out of being someone other than themselves. Could it be they are so afraid fans won’t like how they really are, or do they actually feel their lives have no meaning? Are they trying to earn the respect of their peers?
No matter which one, it seems like the adoption of leftist causes and beliefs is their solution . . .
Agreed. It is an Inconvenient Truth that the Left (and certain people on the Right) refuse to acknowledge. More than any other reason, DT is the result of the overreach of the Left.
Years ago, in an interview, Robert Redford admitted that Hollywood celebrities often sought meaning in the lives by chasing political causes. He said that deep in their hearts, they knew that the primary reason for their success was their physical appearance. And they know they had nothing to do with that reality.
Acting is a skill like any other
I was curious about acting once, so I tried out for a play at the local theater. I got the part in a two-man play. So I had to memorize hundreds of lines.
The upshot: I was terrible and terrified. All those eyes staring at me, some from just a few feet away.
I survived four nights of the play, four of the worst nights of my life.
As I say, it takes skill to act, and some — as in any other profession — have more skill than others.
This is a wonderfully thought out piece of writing.
I would only correct one thing. Most people who make it big will acknowledge that luck, which some would call Divine Providence, is involved. As is often said, luck is the residue of hard work. G-d wants us to make an effort but it is for Him to determine who gets rich.
‘preciate it. Thought I’d have to carry him myself.
Affluenza.
And to further assuage their guilt, unionized! In solidarity with their brethren in the carpenters, brick-layers, and pipe-fitters unions.
Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your back end points!