Sunday, June 23, 2013

Quotations From Pete Seeger: On Fame and Celebrity Worship

As the recently published book Pete Seeger: In His Own Words that Rob Rosenthal and Sam Rosenthal edited indicates, during the 1970s Pete Seeger wrote the following about the negative effects of fame and celebrity worship on people in modern society:

"...I feel very deeply that the whole feveish search to get close to `fame' is not only foolish but a symptom of something very bad in modern society around the world.

"Modern technology, mass production, has made some people too famous and has left billions of people feeling that they are unimportant, that they are just cogs in a big machine...This is really false. Everybody is important in this world...

"...I urge all autograph collectors to realize that the kind of fame people get in show business and politics is about the phoniest of all. To be in show business is to be in the professional publicity business. People are hired to send out releases to newspapers and to arrange for TV interviews..."

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