'Only the good die young' (originally, 'Whom the gods love, dies young' by Herodotus. or later 'The good die young' by William Wordsworth) .....
.... is one of those phrases that get trotted out regularly e.g. when young people die in a car accident, or increasingly when a celebrity dies (at any age).
It's got a number of friends such as 'He was a wonderful father', when a man with young children dies, or she was a 'pillar of the local community', when an older single female dies. There are others, of which 'they left a loving family behind' and 'they will be much missed', or they were 'a true legend' are perhaps the most common ..... which brings me round to the fact that of course, they may not have been 'much missed', or been a 'pillar of the community', or even 'good', generally, or as a father, yet we trot them out as platitudes whenever the occasion arises.
Of course there is a reason for this, which is that they are just trite, meaningless, and largely prosaic statements, which are intended to placate some need to just to say something, simply for the sake of something to say in a socially awkward occasion, where we feel the need to utter a positive comment. In fact history is full of examples of this sort of behaviour, which often helps careers no end.
The rise of the celebrity worship in the West, has led to this being and ever growing phenomena, and the BBC and other media web sites encourage this trend, by opening up a web page for comment when virtually anyone with a little fame dies. These pages are rapidly filled up by a ghoulish breed of the general public, adding statements about how great the deceased were and how its affected them personally etc etc, even though 100% of those making the comments had never ever met the deceased. Princess Diana's pages of obituaries were filled with such comments, and in many ways set the scene and tone for what has come since.
However, these days there is potential booby trap in making such statements about the recently (and possibly little known personally), deceased, which is that many public or not so public figures are being exposed as criminals or implicated in criminality.
This example from the 'your memories' tribute page for Jimmy Saville, is littered with hundreds of examples of people who didn't know him, or met him but briefly, making lavish statements about his saintly character traits .... personally he always struck me as creepy beyond belief. While I knew for a fact that politician Cyril Smith was a 'wrong un'. Oddly no dissension is allowed on those tribute pages ... any comment hinting that all might not have been well with the deceased's character are quashed and removed ...
So all those who said nice things about the rather vile Sir Cyril Smith or animal Sir Jimmy Saville when they died, are probably wishing that they hadn't, even though they could argue that they didn't know them, so couldn't possibly have known what monsters they were.
Which is kinda my point .... if you don't know them well enough to have a firm basis for a comment, don't make one. The BBC for one should learn a lesson from recent events, and stop opening up these tribute pages for celebrities .... a simple obituary based upon known facts at the time would do ... however I felt a bit sorry that the seemingly very nice Nicholas Parsons didn't get a comment section.
It would certainly save a lot of embarrassment, for an awful lot of people later.
 |
| Nicholas Parsons CBE Was A British Media Legend - But No Comment Page Opened By BBC? |
.... is one of those phrases that get trotted out regularly e.g. when young people die in a car accident, or increasingly when a celebrity dies (at any age).
It's got a number of friends such as 'He was a wonderful father', when a man with young children dies, or she was a 'pillar of the local community', when an older single female dies. There are others, of which 'they left a loving family behind' and 'they will be much missed', or they were 'a true legend' are perhaps the most common ..... which brings me round to the fact that of course, they may not have been 'much missed', or been a 'pillar of the community', or even 'good', generally, or as a father, yet we trot them out as platitudes whenever the occasion arises.
Of course there is a reason for this, which is that they are just trite, meaningless, and largely prosaic statements, which are intended to placate some need to just to say something, simply for the sake of something to say in a socially awkward occasion, where we feel the need to utter a positive comment. In fact history is full of examples of this sort of behaviour, which often helps careers no end.
The rise of the celebrity worship in the West, has led to this being and ever growing phenomena, and the BBC and other media web sites encourage this trend, by opening up a web page for comment when virtually anyone with a little fame dies. These pages are rapidly filled up by a ghoulish breed of the general public, adding statements about how great the deceased were and how its affected them personally etc etc, even though 100% of those making the comments had never ever met the deceased. Princess Diana's pages of obituaries were filled with such comments, and in many ways set the scene and tone for what has come since.
However, these days there is potential booby trap in making such statements about the recently (and possibly little known personally), deceased, which is that many public or not so public figures are being exposed as criminals or implicated in criminality.
 |
| Saville and Smith - Secret Monsters, Public Saints. |
This example from the 'your memories' tribute page for Jimmy Saville, is littered with hundreds of examples of people who didn't know him, or met him but briefly, making lavish statements about his saintly character traits .... personally he always struck me as creepy beyond belief. While I knew for a fact that politician Cyril Smith was a 'wrong un'. Oddly no dissension is allowed on those tribute pages ... any comment hinting that all might not have been well with the deceased's character are quashed and removed ...
So all those who said nice things about the rather vile Sir Cyril Smith or animal Sir Jimmy Saville when they died, are probably wishing that they hadn't, even though they could argue that they didn't know them, so couldn't possibly have known what monsters they were.
Which is kinda my point .... if you don't know them well enough to have a firm basis for a comment, don't make one. The BBC for one should learn a lesson from recent events, and stop opening up these tribute pages for celebrities .... a simple obituary based upon known facts at the time would do ... however I felt a bit sorry that the seemingly very nice Nicholas Parsons didn't get a comment section.
It would certainly save a lot of embarrassment, for an awful lot of people later.
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