Of all the mudslinging in this year’s presidential election, the charge that the other candidate is a “celebrity” is the most curious. Surely, experience and vision for the country matter. Nonetheless, the celebrity status of leaders is inescapable—a point that Adam Smith’s political psychology drives home.
The “celebrity” mudslinging began with the McCain ad associating Obama with Paris Hilton and Brittney Spears. After Palin was launched into the spotlight, her face adorned the covers of magazines, including the colorful variety available at grocery checkout lines. The ubiquity of the former beauty pageant contestant’s face invited a similar riposte from Obama’s supporters.
Obviously, Paris Hilton’s celebrity status is vacuous; it is based solely on her being famous for being famous. On the other hand, most Hollywood stars attain their celebrity status because of their talent. And Obama and Palin’s star status is linked to their experiences in public office and to their substantive visions for leading the country.
However, to opponents of either candidate, there is no difference between the candidate they scorn and Paris Hilton. For McCain-Palin supporters, Obama is an all-talk star full of rhetoric but short on experience. But for many Obama-Biden backers, Palin is a token aimed only to help with McCain’s electability.
Each camp, though, misses the point. Celebrity status is an indispensable ingredient of political leadership. John Locke got it all wrong. Voters don’t come together to form a social compact and to select leaders on the basis of calculative rationality. Adam Smith, however, got it right. Smith argued that sympathetic feelings with leaders is based on frustrated aspirations and ambition and, hence, trump calculative rationality.
Smith’s little known book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759, has a much neglected chapter on “the origin of Ambition.” Smith commences the chapter with an innocuous observation: humans vigorously aspire for distinction while try to avoid obscurity with dread.
Most humans, though, realize how hard it is to distinguish themselves. They cannot sustain a life of zeal and jealousy while trying to be the best pianist or the best football player. People, then, face two choices: They either slip into the pits of envy, or accept their lower status and bow their heads in admiration to the one who has overtaken them. If they choose the latter, people stand on the side and cheer the admired one. The admirers actually free-ride; they shake off their sense of obscurity by experiencing vicariously the feelings of the admired.
Smith calls such vicarious experience “peculiar sympathy,” which differs from normal sympathy. With normal sympathy, one puts oneself in the shoes of the other and feels, although at a lower pitch, the other’s sentiments. With peculiar sympathy, a person imagines what is happening to the admired other as happening to his or her own person.
This gives many fans an intense feeling of solidarity, but one that often has less to do with the object of admiration and more to do with the fan’s frustrated aspirations. Princess Diana was bewildered with the peculiar sympathy she received. She realized that admirers were more interested in her celebrity status than in her as a person. Admirers simply attempt to taste the glamour supposedly experienced by the admired.
For peculiar sympathy to work, Smith argues, the object of admiration must have achieved a distinction. The admired also must have an ordinary background—so that ordinary people can imagine it is possible for them to reach the coveted distinction. This explains why candidates often exaggerate the modesty of their origins. If the acquired fame does not garner enough admiration, it would be seen as underserved. The fall of the unjustifiably famous usually invites delight, or schadenfreude.
This is where Paris Hilton meets political philosophy. Her story illustrates what happens to someone with unmerited celebrity. She can neither claim a distinction, nor of having an ordinary background. The public’s delight during her few days in jail indicates the risk of unearned celebrity or leadership for those seeking elected office.
The schadenfreude we feel witnessing the fall of a fake celebrity mirrors the peculiar sympathy we feel witnessing the rise of our favored genuine celebrity. While each campaign tries hard to emphasize their candidate’s qualifications, the celebrity status, with its risks, are inescapable.
The Obama-Biden campaign’s challenge is to attack Palin’s qualifications while skillfully avoid a backfire. Michigan’s democratic governor Jennifer Granholm had coached Biden for his debate with Palin. Biden’s campaign had feared that his gruff manner could help Palin, the candidate with the more ordinary background, win peculiar sympathy. And hockey moms with lipstick everywhere would then feel under attack. Adam Smith could have told them that 250 years ago.
Oct 22