House of Eratosthenes

3. Accept all criticism, even when it makes absolutely no sense. Become less of what you are, until people decide you’re okay, even though they never will.
4. Even as you accept unreasonable criticism, avoid criticizing anything anybody else does, unless someone else is already criticizing it.

Those are two of my tips about how to earn a eulogy full of awkward, empty bromides. Agree with everything negative ever said about you even though it makes no sense, and don’t say anything negative about anything else — unless that’s become “The Thing To Do,” in which case you should dish out scoldings by the bushel. In short, let the bandwagon be your “something’s-wrong-with-that” compass.

So is Will Smith earning a eulogy full of awkward, empty bromides? He certainly seems to be trying to, I can see by Pam Meister’s expose in Pajamas Media today. The lad is younger than me, stronger than me, looks much better than most of us and who wouldn’t love to have a house and a bank account like his?

But whatever eulogy I have coming my way, I’ll keep it warts-and-all, thankewverymuch. Mr. Smith can hang on to his. I’m sure there’ll be a few non-awkward sprinklings in the nice things said about him when it’s time, his charities, his movies, funny things he did, etc. But by-and-large, he represents exactly what I was describing.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to wading in the Hollywood cesspool, another witless celebrity decides to trash America.

Will Smith is the latest overpaid navel-gazer to join the “Embarrassed to Be a Rich American Celebrity Tour.” On a recent Today Show appearance to hawk his upcoming movie Hancock — which, if this report is correct, is likely to be a box office disaster — Smith had this to say about his recent travels abroad:

You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London, and Paris and it’s the first, I’ve been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn’t been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing.

How incredibly popular this has become; how many Will Smiths there are. You complain about George Bush, so I’m going to complain about George Bush. If it’s nonsensical to complain about X but you’re doing it anyway, I’ll help you complain about it. If it makes lots of sense to complain about Z but nobody else is complaining about Z, I’ll keep my silence on it. The bandwagon is the compass.

Pam Meister continues to opine, raising the fascinating rhetorical question of just who, exactly, died and made the Europeans boss:

It does surprise me that Smith refers to being relieved of his embarrassment in Berlin, considering that country has moved to ban Scientology, something Smith has been dabbling in for some time now. Is the German government’s move to ban a, er, religion — in light of Germany’s history of religious tolerance — something the Germans should be embarrassed about when they travel abroad? Perhaps the next time I see a German tourist I’ll ask in somber tones, “What do you think about your government banning Scientology?” in the same manner so many Europeans like to ask Americans, “What do you think about your president?” and if you reply in a positive manner they stare at you as though you have just sprouted a second nose.

Ouch. That’s gonna leave a mark.

Mr. Smith is only among the most entertaining and appealing elite of what has become a majority, a vocal majority if no other kind, of bullying nonsense-peddlers. They insist the rest of us accept their judgment as a lodestar, while proffering that sense of judgment only as a proxy. None of ’em take responsibility for anything. They criticize, not what it makes sense to criticize, but instead what lots of folks among them are already criticizing. This has become painfully obvious as it has become later into George W. Bush’s second and final term: We can debate into all hours of the night whether or not President Bush deserves criticism, but we can’t debate whether it makes sense to criticize him. It doesn’t. What’s the other guy going to say when you make your criticism stick? “Oh that does it then, I’m not gonna re-elect him“?

So what do you say at Will Smith’s eulogy? He had the courage to criticize some things it made no sense to criticize, when a bunch of other people were already doing it. That’s an awkward, empty bromide if ever there was one.

How much company does he have? Consider the contract made by people like him: LET ME INTO THE CLUB. I will voice my opinion courageously, after others have already done it…and there is no residual question remaining about whether it is the voice of the majority or not. I will add my energy and my charisma, but never my judgment for my judgment will simply be a clone of what others have judged.

I will lean on the oar. My hand will stay off the tiller. I am propulsion; I am not direction. I change the vector but not the bearing.

I will not change the outcome. In anything. But it will be lots of fun to look at me.

What do you say about someone like that when their time comes? You say you will miss them — and then what? The thing that floats just under the surface, the elephant in the room that makes the eulogy truly awkward and unbearable, is that all fun things come & go and we adapt just fine. We will learn to get along without ’em. After we so learn, we will be better people than we were before.

That isn’t the case with people who have the courage to change an outcome — stamping their individual identities under the changes. In the middle of droning out their eulogies, you wonder what in the world is going to happen now. You wonder how things would have been different. It’s a different eulogy. Trust me, I know; I’ve delivered them. It’s a tough one to do, but I’d much rather deliver that kind, than the kind of eulogy you give for someone who has no memory worth cherishing, no outcome changed because of his presence, the guy who criticizes only that which others are already criticizing. Human cattle.

Well, maybe the fact that no eulogy can be comfortably delivered, is the point. Green burials are becoming increasingly popular in the Europe from where Will Smith takes his marching orders, and some of these are lacking in a headstone or even a ceremony. So it’s not as if these folks have failed at anything by passing through their entire lifespans without making a real difference in things. Except — Will Smith actually does good things for charity. Good for him, but I wonder how he reconciles this?

When you’re trying to avoid upsetting the status quo in looking for things to criticize…avoiding any decisions for yourself, avoiding making any disruption in what has already been decided by others…but then you want to “make a difference” in things other people will think are nice and wonderful — the common thread devolves to a singularity. And that is earning the approval of strangers. Once that becomes what life is all about, it makes for a very awkward eulogy indeed.

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Meister on Those Scolding Europeans and Will SmithWednesday, July 2nd, 2008

Meister on Those Scolding Europeans and Will Smith
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008