The day after Thanksgiving I was on the golf course when my buddy’s phone rang. The news was disturbing, to say the least.
Another friend of ours was calling to tell us that Tiger Woods was involved in a bad car accident, that he had suffered severe head injuries, and that he was in the hospital in serious condition. Ten minutes later I received a phone call from my mother telling me the same thing. My thoughts immediately turned to his wife, children, and mother – what a horrible ordeal they must be suffering through. As golfers, we were discussing the ramifications of whether or not Tiger would be considered the greatest golfer of all time were he not able to return and beat Jack Nicklaus’ record of winning eighteen majors.
As it turns out, none of those concerns were even close to what really matters now to our culture of celebrity worship regarding this incident. As the holiday weekend bore on, and the story slowly evolved, it was apparent that Tiger was not seriously hurt and would return to golf. What was less apparent was whether or not the most cloistered and private super-athlete in history would weather the media frenzy over rumors that spread like wild-fire regarding his ostensible marital infidelity, why he was a bad driver that night, and why his wife used his driver to break the windows in his SUV.
What is most disturbing now is not Tiger’s injuries, but rather the injurious nature of celebrity culture worship to our society. We are deeply enmeshed in two wars that are both going to drag on for years to come, our country is in serious financial condition, robber barons and financial terrorists have looted the national treasury to further enrich themselves at our expense . . . and we are obsessed with whether or not Tiger Woods slept with some alleged celebrity gold-digger, and pissed off his wife?
Innuendo, allegations, and “verified sources” are the stuff of modern day ambush tabloid journalism. Moreover, these tales grows bigger with each newly released “fact”. When truth becomes a subordinate goal of reporting a story, reality is whatever the spinmakers ordain it to become.
For instance: Obama is a Kenyan because he has not provided a certified birth certificate demonstrating his American citizenship to the satisfaction of the people who claim he was born in Kenya? After the certified birth certificate is released by the state agency in Hawaii, elements of the media and public still deny it’s authenticity. So how do you prove something that is undeniably true, if the listener engages in “don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up” rationale. After all, can’t you simply ignore those who will not believe that which is self-evident? Not in the age where truth is the first casualty of war.
If truth is so easily squandered away, how can we as a society expect to acheive greatness in the midst of an obsessive focus on the mundane and insignificant veiled under the guise of relevance and importance?
That should be what America is asking itself.