The greatest threat to most rich people is not war, starvation, poverty, or even revolution. It's getting cancelled on Twitter.
The reason why Hollywood talks a lot about diversity, inclusion, feminism, gay rights, human rights, etc, is not because everyone in Hollywood independently decided those things were good. Far from it: this is the same town that circled the wagons around Roman Polanski, after all. And their institutions were built on the backs of bright-eyed female actors being drugged up and sexually harassed. They are genetically tainted[0] against social justice.
What happened to make Hollywood care about this is very simple: the people who fought for the rights of the oppressed figured out how to weaponize social ostracism and public shame as a political tool. And this is not the first time this has happened, of course. The 50s saw Congress blatantly purge Hollywood of leftists through ostracism; and there's a whole right-wing strain of cancel culture[1] that rarely gets mentioned. Even deep-rooted tendencies have to bend in the face of external pressure.
Ostracism isn't unique to rich people, of course. It can happen within any social structure[2]. The difference is where people get cancelled. If you've been fired from your job for going on right-wing rants all the time, you go and get another job. If you've been given the national spotlight by becoming Twitter's Villain of the Day, that reputation will stick to you forever. And that latter scenario is way more likely to occur to people who are already well-connected, well-known, and have something to lose.
In other words, famous people tend to seem detached from the rest of us because they are looking down at us from space. In the same way that any one of us might be a little detached from, say, someone growing up in the 1950s.
[0] As in, I am deliberately tarring Hollywood with the genetic fallacy. #NotAllMovieMoguls
[1] Remember when they cancelled the Dixie Chicks for hating the Iraq War?
[2] Which, inevitably, will form into a nested hierarchy of cliques.
The reason why Hollywood talks a lot about diversity, inclusion, feminism, gay rights, human rights, etc, is not because everyone in Hollywood independently decided those things were good. Far from it: this is the same town that circled the wagons around Roman Polanski, after all. And their institutions were built on the backs of bright-eyed female actors being drugged up and sexually harassed. They are genetically tainted[0] against social justice.
What happened to make Hollywood care about this is very simple: the people who fought for the rights of the oppressed figured out how to weaponize social ostracism and public shame as a political tool. And this is not the first time this has happened, of course. The 50s saw Congress blatantly purge Hollywood of leftists through ostracism; and there's a whole right-wing strain of cancel culture[1] that rarely gets mentioned. Even deep-rooted tendencies have to bend in the face of external pressure.
Ostracism isn't unique to rich people, of course. It can happen within any social structure[2]. The difference is where people get cancelled. If you've been fired from your job for going on right-wing rants all the time, you go and get another job. If you've been given the national spotlight by becoming Twitter's Villain of the Day, that reputation will stick to you forever. And that latter scenario is way more likely to occur to people who are already well-connected, well-known, and have something to lose.
In other words, famous people tend to seem detached from the rest of us because they are looking down at us from space. In the same way that any one of us might be a little detached from, say, someone growing up in the 1950s.
[0] As in, I am deliberately tarring Hollywood with the genetic fallacy. #NotAllMovieMoguls
[1] Remember when they cancelled the Dixie Chicks for hating the Iraq War?
[2] Which, inevitably, will form into a nested hierarchy of cliques.