emphasis on pussy liberal arts studies needs to be changed. All together - UC is an f'ing douchebag.

It's Ben Stein's final column or something.

Quote :

"How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World? As I begin to write this, I "slug" it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is "eonlineFINAL," and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end. It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again. Beyond that, a bigger change has happened I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to. How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a "star" we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails. They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world. A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad. He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him. A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad. The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists. We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die. I am no longer comfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject. There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards. Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them. But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms. This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human."

I have to go stalk Lindsay Lohan and make out with a tree now.

9/7/2005 3:26:29 AM

wtf does this have to do with "pussy liberal arts studies"? Are you implying that liberal arts schools and programs are constantly turning out these actors who then go on to make millions of $? 99.9% of the people coming out of acting and liberal arts schools will never make that kind of money - if they pursue acting or writing, they will struggle to get by, and more than likely end up going into another field. I bet a huge number of the people in hollywood never even went to college, having moved to NY or LA as soon after high school as possible, maybe attending some acting seminars, or studied in another field in college and did acting on the side.

I agree with the article 100%, and fortunately for me, I realized this at a much younger age than Ben Stein apparently did. I do not think Hollywood actors and entertainers should be looked up to as stars or heros or anything of the sort. That is why I don't watch Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood or read People magazine, or watch the Oscars or Grammys or Emmys, etc (I think it's redonkulous that these people who have enough money to buy anything in the world they want have several nights dedicated to how "amazing" they are, topped off with little gold statues of naked people and complimentary gift bags worth $20k). I don't have a list of stars that I would do anything just to meet, or am even particularly interested in catching sight of these people first-hand.

I think they are insanely overpaid considering the amount of work they do and they types of skills it involves. Although I must conceed that this is simply capitalistic supply and demand - they offer a service that millions of people are willing to pay to see, and therefore should be compensated for it. If it's not the actors raking in the millions of dollars us consumers are spending at the theaters, then it will be the studios that take all the money instead. If people were paid according to a combination of their value to society and the amount of manual or intellectual required for their jobs, then teachers, civil servants (police, fire, military), engineers, scientists, doctors (well..... they're already up there, but they perform invaluable services), nurses etc would be raking in the big bucks, and actors, singers, and entertainers would be at the bottom. But that's not how capitalism works, now is it? There are 10,000's of teachers in the country and each of them can only directly influence maybe at most 100 students per year, where as there is only a relative handfull of big-time actors, and they can reach millions of people each. Therefore, that's where the money goes. Sounds to me like the problem isn't our pussy liberal arts studies churning out actors, but rather our society's inexplicable desire to live vicariously through our "american idols".

9/7/2005 3:58:55 AM

supply and demand can be a bitch

9/7/2005 9:12:25 AM

I don't see how this has shit to do with Liberal Arts.

^^Ben Stein was also part of that group, so I think it would make it harder for him. I agree though, the fucking celebrity obsession makes me sick.

9/7/2005 9:40:58 AM

Ben Stein is definitely under-appreciated. Talk about an amazingly diverse and successful career.

9/7/2005 10:13:17 AM

i just like movies, is that so wrong?

9/7/2005 10:15:26 AM

i think he would rather be remembered/known as a writer, academic and intellectual than an actor, comedian or entertainer.

9/7/2005 10:16:10 AM

this article brings moisture to my dry scratchy eyes....wooooow.

9/7/2005 10:24:44 AM

^^^ YOU HATE FREEDOM!!!

[Edited on September 7, 2005 at 10:25 AM. Reason : .]

9/7/2005 10:25:06 AM

yet another unfunny thread by UberComedian

9/7/2005 10:15:31 PM

Quote :

"yet another unfunny thread by UberComedian "

9/7/2005 10:21:43 PM

I'd like to know where he performs so I can constantly boo him.

9/7/2005 10:41:16 PM

...

So ... what is the title of this essay? "Ben Stein is a Communist?" It's funny how the lines blur at the edges, eh?

I think he's spent too much time drinking his own Kool-Aid.

Soldiers die for their country; they don't die for soldier-dom. They don't die so more young Americans can grow up and fight in wars. The firemen who ran up the stairs at the WTC didn't die so that more firemen after them could do the same.

Teachers in civil society don't teach so that every one of their pupils can grow up to be teachers.

Ben Stein is hopelessly confusing the means with the ends. The end of civil service, is civil society. A capitalist, civil society is one where people aspire to a peaceful, affluent (yes, even materialistic) life. Celebrities represent the highest-end of that goal, and are entertaining to boot, and therefore they are idols.

Plus he's insulting to the servicemen who die, and who are not in fact "anonymous." I think it's fair to say that their deaths have more impact on their communities than, say, the average celebrity. He's, quite ironically, just using their sacrifices to make his point.

9/8/2005 7:38:32 AM