The Incoherence of Fame

Or maybe I should say the incoherence of the desire for fame. The desire for fame is the desire to be loved writ large. We all want to be loved and appreciated and not to be hated or ignored or unappreciated. But the desire to be loved makes sense: we want people to recognize who we truly are and love us for it. The desire to be loved is the desire to be known and have that knowledge make a positive impact on someone else. But the desire to be famous skips over the "known" part. It's the desire to be loved without being known. And this is incoherent. What exactly would people in this situation be loving? Not you. They'd love their image of you, but the image is superficial and not verisimilitudenous. Their image is not you. And since they'd love their image, it wouldn't be you they love. So the desire to be famous is the desire to be loved without being known. But being loved presupposes being known. The whole desire for fame is simply incoherent. And yet it's part of the human condition.

And the irony is that we are offered love from someone who knows us more deeply than we know ourselves. Perhaps you could say God loves us despite who we are, but he also loves us for who we are. So we have the opportunity for genuine fame -- that is being known by the ground of being itself and loved -- and we reject it in favor of incoherent fame. God save us.