Lady Gaga, Sarah Palin, and the Lovable Exorcism of Postmodernism

1) I consider the problem of postmodernism like the last cookie problem, which I have previously written on this blog, but I post again here (flag some assumptions at the top of this derivation, philosophers, I need you to digress with me for a bit):

Imagine a party, where there is a platter of cookies. Everyone is at the party having a great time, you're there, and I'm there. As the party goes on, everyone eats more and more cookies from the platter until there is only one left.

Now, at this point, the music of the party stops and everyone looks around. Manners dictate that no one should take that last cookie, because generally speaking manners are meant to put everyone at ease. In this case, with the cookies, the ease is supposedly that taking the last cookie means that no one else has the potential to eat that cookie, that you're claiming something better, that you take away from the group, and other tensions.

So while everyone is thinking about how polite it is to not take the cookie, and leave that cookie that everyone wants on the platter; someone is honest enough to grab the cookie.

But a funny thing happens: when this honest person grabs the cookie, everyone bursts out laughing for the cutting of humbug. Everyone feels relief at the grace of taking the last cookie and being happy. The true manners in this situation were to eat the cookie and not feel guilty.

But I feel as though taking the cookie is still wrong in this situation. Everyone is laughing and having a great time as the person reaches in, and in my mind's eye I have them laughing, too; then all of the sudden this person eats that last cookie and that's the end of the story.

My philosopher friends ask me, "Why does it matter?"

Hold tight folks I'm about to make a move.

2) This is my solution postmodernism: I think the end of the meta-analysis is the intuitive way that things feel.

Consider the Emperor's new clothes story: it took the little boy to say that the emperor was wearing no clothes in order to realize that everyone was doing something ridiculous.

The analysis of meta-analysis, the problems of problems, and so on, they all end with how it all feels.

So the woman was right in the story to take the cookie because everyone felt better; end of story. Is it the end of the story? For them it is. I might add we have to bring more cookies for the next one. There's other stuff to analyze here, like group dynamics, individualism, and leadership, but I feel like the problem was solved when that last person took the last cookie.

3) Meta Analysis of Gaga and Palin, and the cookie problem

A) Why is Lady Gaga a post-modern figure? I've already commented on why this woman counts as more than your average pop starlet, including the article from Slate where I got the idea.

I say to my friends Lady Gaga is performing an exorcism of the mass media demons.

The mass media demons are the "paparazzi" and the people who would have us second guess ourselves; perhaps when we say that we want to ride a "disco stick" or that we are guilty about what we like, as in "bad romance" (all these quotes are songs by Lady Gaga).

But the songs keep creeping up on me. "Paparazzi" talks about loving a person like the paparazzi. The reason this is wrong is because love and paparazzi parallel each other in lust. The same sexual satisfaction we get from following celebrities is the same as a bad crush, a lust that we might have on someone around us whom we don't really know, but we want to know.

I know better, and hopefully you know better, than thinking stalking is akin to love, or leads to love.

The song, however, isn't aimed at us, it's aimed at "paparazzi". The truth is, right down to "Okay" and "Us" (literally Us) is that we are the paparazzi. We are the people who judge the song "disco stick". We are the second guessers, the judges, of this madness. Lady Gaga is the person in the room taking that last cookie, everyone is laughing, even she is, but this is uneasy laughter, folks.

Who are they to judge? is us, it's us, it's us.

And we root for Lady Gaga to exorcise these evil demons without realizing that it is we who are the demons.


B) Sarah Palin is a parallel to Lady Gaga and the cookie eater. Lady Gaga comments on how terrible the music environment is for its double standards, the cookie eater skates the line of both doing what everyone feels like they should be doing and not doing, a morally dubious course of action that is okay (?).

Sarah Palin continuously talks about how awful the liberal media is; from the lectern of the media.

We're all laughing, and Palin is certainly a rich woman from her new book, as this woman takes this last cookie.

And the people who are rooting for her are the ones who empathize with her the most.

The Biblical saying is, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." the truth is that we are constantly judging negatively and we are constantly fearful of being judged.

People who empathize with Palin, and this is no secret, are the judgers. They are evangelical Christians, the midwesterners, the far right of Republican party.

But who perpetuates all of this?
Who is it that reads the People magazine with Sarah Palin in it?
Who revels in these double standards (right down to the blog you're reading, with yours truly writing)?

She is taking the last cookie, Gaga and Palin are exorcising these demons, and we are all laughing.



****


I think there's something else about calling out a Liberal bias when that's humbug.

Mainstream media, it brings up, and I think it should bring up, news events from an objective standpoint.

That is, when someone comes to you with a whole lot of problems, you might be inclined to call them biased and deluded because they are bringing up problems. You might even be subconsciously inclined to do this.

But that doesn't mean that they are deluded, or that they are biased.

It just means that you were mistaken.