“Look in my eyes. What do you see? I’m the cult of personality.”
The above lyrics are from a 1988 song called “The Cult of Personality” by a band named “Living Color.” They were a good band, and the song was a hit. But, as I have alluded to many times before, the modern poets are the song writers. The song is still valid today – think about it: we very much live in a world that has taken sides and think “our side” can do no wrong. Certainly, a personality cult if there ever was. The song actually explains the damage done by these personality driven groups: “I tell you one and one makes three,” it says – and people buy it. We, folks, are trapped, too, because the truth is somewhere out there, but it is twisted into a pretzel so much anymore it is hard to render it straight. Honest and good people get led astray, too.
It is, in a way, only natural we “take sides.” It is very American. Well, it is human nature, but we do it all the time in the U.S. If you are a football fan and watch a game, the referees calls are suspect – even with clear evidence the call may be right. True, sometimes the mistakes they make are glaring. Do you recall the time the “replacement refs” officiated because of a strike on the part of the referee crews in the NFL? It went over like a lead balloon. Does anyone remember when the blown call for Green Bay resulted in that city bringing in “replacement weathermen” for a time to do the weather as a mild form of protest? Again – very American. And, honestly,very healthy. For the most part, what you see with the “blown calls” on the news is an NFL-like response by the people who are complaining about the “refs.” It depends on which side you are rooting for, true: if you liked the call, you were going to let it slide and complain about the sore losers on the other side. Again – I find nothing anti-American in all of this, and to be sure – I find some of it downright amusing.
The danger lies with just how absorbed a person is going to get in the drama: I can’t say that a football club is a “personality cult” but, at times, there are resemblances, albeit minor ones. But, when blatant lies are perpetuated, and people have little access to the truth of any matter, we turn into sheep. The sheep have to trust that the Shepard is leading them into a green pasture and not a wolf-filled meadow. Personality cults are a betrayal of the highest order. It is what happens when people or groups decide they have to win at any cost.
The outcomes are never good. “You gave me fortune, you gave me fame. You gave me power in your god’s name,” says the song. The song is an admonition to be weary: sometimes we create the very things we try to escape – and it is often at great cost to ourselves. Be careful folks – there is an old saying out there that is a good a test as any when deciding what is real or not: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck – guess what? It’s a duck. Stay away from all those to-good-to-be true sales pitches. Well, unless you are watching an info-mercial. Who knows? Maybe that knife really will cut through a cinder block and then still slice your tomato. It just might be true.
