Celebrities… Is there anything they don’t know?
May 28, 2009 | Posted by Michael S. Langston Writing for the Huffington Post, Matthew Modine attempts to make an argument about how the automobile should be viewed by society at large.
He starts off telling us why when he rides a bicycle to work, he feels a sense of self satisfaction and since most trips are made to destinations less than 5 miles away, we should all take his advice in order to feel as good as he did.
Leaving aside the fact that not everyone lives in the constantly sunny state of CA and how impractical this would be for most people, I think he also lacks a basic understanding that citizen mobility has increased options for poorest segments of our society. The ability to be mobile, utilizing cars even, has helped countless people be able to move quickly to places where jobs are more plentiful and higher paying, instead of sticking to where they currently reside.
Even having said that, like most celebrities, he takes his ignorance on the entire subject and moves into the land of the crazy, completely out of touch idiots (whole thing here):
…The automobile took us further and faster than we could have ever done by self-propulsion. But that speed and distance has brought the world to the edge of extinction. We must now look at the automobile with an understanding of what it really is. We must look at the movies and songs that celebrated the automobile with a new consciousness and awareness. We must look at the automobile as a cigarette–a cancer stick–a nail in our collective coffin. The sexy lifestyle that the tobacco industry sold to us contains the same advertising lies and poison which the automobile industry sold and continues to sell to the world. Look at the ads for automobiles and you’ll begin to recognize the lies…
I would hazard a guess though that if he can allow him to do the mental twisting that requires this analogy, it also allows him to rationalize what is most likely his extremely self-righteous attitude towards others who don’t feel the same way.
I wonder if he understands that with smugness like this, he shares more in common with TV evangelists than he does with anything resembling rational, thoughtful adults?
One thing is for certain, if the public debate about environmentalism continues to be told by politicans and celebrities, it’s more likley their cure will be much worse than the problem they are seeking to avoid.
Categories: Celebrities/Celebrity Culture | 
Tags: Celebrity Culture, Critical Thinking, Environmentalism, False Analogy, Fundamentalism, Science | 
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