Reports of the death of celebrities over the years got me reflecting on the widespread response they elicited. I noticed it following the tragic death of. Kobe Bryant back in 2020. And Dale Earnhardt’s whose fatal accident hit those in the auto racing community especially hard.
It isn’t only in the sports area where a death elicits headlines and expressions of love. Diane Keaton’s recent demise and the deaths of two of the Beatles come to mind. A Pope dies and the world mourns. Famous authors, long time politicians, humanitarians.
The intensity of the grief is not always the same. Earnhardt’s death received much more publicity and public words of grief than did Mother Teresa’s.
Much much more than the demises of Frank Harary and Paul Erdös. Who? See what I mean? You may recall I devoted a posting to Professor Erdös. They were mathematicians, and their loss was just as significant to the math field, my field, as Earnhardt’s was to racing.
My first instinct was to question this sense of loss regarding someone the vast majority of the mourners have never met. At least I did know Harary and Erdös. But for most celebrities, very few of us have ever had face-to-face communication.
I kept asking myself, why do people care. We give little thought to the deaths of lesser individuals, like a baseball player who never made it big or the guy down the block you nodded to on the rare occasions you passed him.
And I wondered why the death of a celebrity should be any more important than the death of a wife, a child, a sister, a parent, or any other significant person in one’s life.
Finally, it struck me. And it’s not very deep thinking. I just wasn’t wise enough to realize it before.
Someone upset about Earnhardt’s death wasn’t lessening the significance of Harary’s or any personal member of one’s family. Because we mourn those who are close to us. And close doesn’t have to be physically close. But it does have to be emotionally close.
For many who came of age with the Beatles, they found comfort in the music. They became entranced with the four young men who burst into the United States on the Ed Sullivan show. They grew up with them. Is it any wonder they were shocked, devastated, and felt the need to mourn when John Lennon was murdered?
As a result of these reflections I have altered my views. It isn’t that a celebrity’s death is any more important than another person’s, certainly not more important than family.
Rather, the extent we mourn anyone reflects the closeness of the emotional ties we have with that person. For racing fans, Dale Earnhardt was a part of their life for many years. For mathematicians it was Paul Erdös. For most, it is a family member or close friend.
And for all, the loss of someone dear is an emotional nightmare.
It isn’t only in the sports area where a death elicits headlines and expressions of love. Diane Keaton’s recent demise and the deaths of two of the Beatles come to mind. A Pope dies and the world mourns. Famous authors, long time politicians, humanitarians.
The intensity of the grief is not always the same. Earnhardt’s death received much more publicity and public words of grief than did Mother Teresa’s.
Much much more than the demises of Frank Harary and Paul Erdös. Who? See what I mean? You may recall I devoted a posting to Professor Erdös. They were mathematicians, and their loss was just as significant to the math field, my field, as Earnhardt’s was to racing.
My first instinct was to question this sense of loss regarding someone the vast majority of the mourners have never met. At least I did know Harary and Erdös. But for most celebrities, very few of us have ever had face-to-face communication.
I kept asking myself, why do people care. We give little thought to the deaths of lesser individuals, like a baseball player who never made it big or the guy down the block you nodded to on the rare occasions you passed him.
And I wondered why the death of a celebrity should be any more important than the death of a wife, a child, a sister, a parent, or any other significant person in one’s life.
Finally, it struck me. And it’s not very deep thinking. I just wasn’t wise enough to realize it before.
Someone upset about Earnhardt’s death wasn’t lessening the significance of Harary’s or any personal member of one’s family. Because we mourn those who are close to us. And close doesn’t have to be physically close. But it does have to be emotionally close.
For many who came of age with the Beatles, they found comfort in the music. They became entranced with the four young men who burst into the United States on the Ed Sullivan show. They grew up with them. Is it any wonder they were shocked, devastated, and felt the need to mourn when John Lennon was murdered?
As a result of these reflections I have altered my views. It isn’t that a celebrity’s death is any more important than another person’s, certainly not more important than family.
Rather, the extent we mourn anyone reflects the closeness of the emotional ties we have with that person. For racing fans, Dale Earnhardt was a part of their life for many years. For mathematicians it was Paul Erdös. For most, it is a family member or close friend.
And for all, the loss of someone dear is an emotional nightmare.
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