Celebrity Rehab and the Drug of Sensationalism
One television channel was showing the entire year’s worth of Celebrity Rehab shows. It took all day but I watched the entire thing. I admit I started watching it with the same fascination as rubber-necking past a road accident. But the show stayed pretty grounded and this brought me down from the excitement of the “spectacle” (I use that in the post-modern sense).
I don’t watch a lot of television since I am writing and doing other things much of the time. And reality shows have definitely not been on my must-watch list. When I think of the term reality show I tend to think of documentaries or documentary-like programs. To a certain extent this program was in the documentary style. It documented the changes in these peoples lives without too much sensationalism.
Sensationalism is like a drug. We get off on watching the sensational and sometimes a little grounding is necessary.
Hype, spin, publicity, marketing. All are means to elevate the real to the level of spectacle. To draw attention to minor aspects and magnify them far beyond proportion. To give a distorted view of reality.
This happens in spiritual quarters as well. The master, roshi, guru or other authority figure can sometimes be viewed as an infallible all-knowing being. And sometimes they fall for their own hype if those around them continue to spin out lavish praise and flattery. It takes incredible discipline and self-insight to resist sensationalism.
Often students of a Buddhist teacher have a grossly distorted view of who that teacher is and what they can accomplish under that teacher’s tutelage. This magnification of a teacher into mythic proportions is detrimental both to the student and the teacher. This is even more so in the west where the culture of spin abounds. By example check some of the profiles on Facebook and see how individuals are marketing themselves. Occasionally there is a whiff of desperation to the overcrowded pages and friends numbering in the hundreds. But it is labeled “popularity” rather than desperation.
In Buddhist practice we have to be honest with ourselves. We need to accept the possibility that what we think we see and feel may not be the entire truth and may be the result of some distortions, thinking errors or even mislabeling.
Consider the Buddhist concept of right view. It helps us to discern which ideas are fit for our attention and which are not.
From: The Diamond Sutra
All conditioned phenomena
Are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow
Like the dew, or like lightning
You should discern them like this
Further reading in the Pali Canon:
