The Art of Manliness - The History of Fame, From Alexander the Great to Social Media Influencers

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast when choosing

00:00:11.640 among options like becoming a leader helping others and becoming more spiritual half of

00:00:15.760 millennials say that their generation's first or second most important goal is being famous

00:00:20.380 when teenagers in the uk were asked what they'd like to do for their career over half said they

00:00:24.020 wanted to be a celebrity and amongst kids polled in the us and in the uk three times more said

00:00:28.980 they'd like to become a youtube star than an astronaut how did fame and modernity's particular

00:00:33.140 flavor of fame rise to such prominence has fame always been attractive and how has its meaning

00:00:37.700 changed over time mike gust answers these questions in his book the frenzy of renown fame in its history

00:00:43.040 his name is leo brody he's professor of english literature film history and criticism and

00:00:46.840 american culture at usc today on the show leo takes us on a wide ranging tour through the history of

00:00:51.800 fame which he describes as an emotion an ambition to be somebody to be known the shape of which

00:00:56.220 changes depending on the audience to which people look in order to gain the desired attention we begin

00:01:00.660 and leo will explain why with alexander the great before turning to what fame meant for the romans

00:01:05.140 whose audience was not just the immediate public but their posterity we then turn to how christianity

00:01:09.900 changed the idea of fame to something based on private inward virtue where one's only true audience

00:01:14.740 was god we then dig into how the renaissance gave birth the idea of the artist who regardless of

00:01:18.980 social class could gain fame through his talent and creativity we discuss how the rise of mass media

00:01:23.640 created a new kind of even more democratized fame and a dynamic which would come to rest on a

00:01:28.080 reciprocal relationship between the famous and their fans leo argues that fame in the 20th century

00:01:32.780 became more about being rather than doing a trend which is only accelerated in the age of social media

00:01:38.060 at the end of our conversation leo makes the case for return to a positive ennobling conception of

00:01:42.800 fame in which recognition must be earned and connected to actual greatness after the show's over check out

00:01:47.840 show notes at aom.is fame leo joins you now via clearcast.io

00:01:52.920 leo brody welcome to the show thank you thanks great to be here brett so we had you on the podcast

00:02:07.820 about three years ago to talk about your book about war and masculinity how war has influenced

00:02:13.460 masculinity throughout time it's an epic cultural history i wanted to bring you back on the show to

00:02:19.160 talk about a book another epic cultural history you wrote about the topic of fame and the book is

00:02:25.700 called the frenzy of renown and originally published in 1986 and then you did an update with an afterword

00:02:32.320 in 1993 it's one of my favorite books i'm curious what do you think that people can learn about

00:02:40.020 what it means to be human by studying the history of fame well it's not just being human because that

00:02:48.240 that is an important part of it because i think we can see fame as a kind of more intensified version

00:02:55.080 of how we are in public our social selves and often people take cues i mean this is it they take cues from

00:03:04.320 famous people they take cues from celebrities that cues about how to dress cues about how to engage with

00:03:09.700 other people so that's that's definitely part of the human side and perhaps learning about the history

00:03:16.520 of fame i would hope allows us to stand back a little bit rather than just to plunge in in a kind

00:03:23.220 of unselfconscious way just to imitate other people other selves other other kinds of models of the public

00:03:31.540 self so in the book you make the case that the idea of fame as we know it today gets its start

00:03:38.420 with alexander the great we see it's kind of the birth of it what did alexander the great do that

00:03:43.800 was different from previous ancient rulers because there were there were famous rulers before alexander

00:03:48.460 the great like the pharaohs and things like that but you think you you make the case that he did

00:03:53.100 something different what was it that was different from those previous famous rulers part of part of

00:03:58.340 what makes i what reason that i start with alexander is actually i went backwards you know a lot of my

00:04:04.260 training my academic training graduate school when i did my early academic work was in the 18th century

00:04:11.120 and one of the things i noticed about the 18th century about people who wrote then was how often

00:04:16.420 they compared themselves to the romans to the you know the classical period they wanted to be like

00:04:22.280 roman writers in a variety of ways they wanted to invoke roman ideas so i went back to rome and i

00:04:29.120 discovered that the romans kept invoking alexander so i would go back to alexander and then it seemed

00:04:35.360 to me that alexander was a good start because unlike the pharaohs that you mentioned i mean the pharaohs

00:04:40.800 are famous within egypt they build large statues to themselves and things like that alexander had a much

00:04:47.980 a much wider urge to be famous he wanted to combat with the gods basically he wanted to be more famous

00:04:55.860 than the heroes of of the iliad particularly of achilles and not only did he want to do that

00:05:03.120 he wanted everybody to know about it when he took his army over to persia there in the persian wars

00:05:11.080 from which he never returned of course he took along with him historians he took along with him

00:05:17.160 painters sculptors even people who designed gems things like that all in order to

00:05:23.620 memorialize memorialize memorialize memorialize his activities his triumphs his fame essentially

00:05:31.500 well he also wanted to send the news back to a particular audience as well to uh to athens remember

00:05:39.040 alexander was an outsider alexander was from illyria alexander macedonia he um in fact wanted to become

00:05:47.880 famous in athens that athens was the center of the world then and athens i mean let's say the way

00:05:55.560 all the publishers are in new york things like that for so where had been certainly for a long time

00:06:01.440 that is what is the center of the dissemination of fame let's focus on that and let's bring let's

00:06:08.700 make myself famous in that place and another point you made that i thought was interesting

00:06:14.340 about alexander what made him different like previous rulers like pharaohs or other rulers

00:06:19.640 before them they were trying to be famous within a role like they just they were going to be like a

00:06:23.900 famous pharaoh like alexander wanted to be famous for being alexander for being alexander and for doing

00:06:30.980 the things that alexander did like the famous gordian knot story i mean that has nothing to do with

00:06:35.900 winning a battle what that has to do is you know it's kind of stepping outside how does he solve the

00:06:42.040 gordian knot no one can untie the gordian knot and alexander just goes there and cuts the gordian

00:06:47.740 knot so he steps outside the standards of the tradition of the gordian knot and destroys it himself

00:06:56.160 and i think that in the same way when he was going through persia and into india with his army

00:07:03.160 he would always try to find out what was who were the local gods and what did they do

00:07:09.340 and so he'll come in for example let's say he'll come into an area and the locals will say well you

00:07:16.160 know there's that big hill over there that only hercules could have climbed you know and that he did

00:07:21.300 that once and you know he was the great hero and alexander says okay and he immediately just zips up

00:07:26.840 that hill and he supersedes hercules this is exact he wants to supersede myth he wants to become a kind

00:07:34.060 of myth himself so that was alexander this idea of superseding myth and being famous for being

00:07:40.040 alexander how did the so you mentioned the romans picked up their cues on what it meant to be famous

00:07:44.680 from alexander how did fame how did the romans take what alexander started and change it well

00:07:51.520 rome of course is a is a place uh is a famous city is a city that in fact you know ruled a large

00:07:59.680 portion of the known world at that time and so part of part of what rome did to this idea of fame was

00:08:06.600 kind of to look at it in terms of who are you in public roman fame classical fame in that way and

00:08:15.040 this is taking a cue from from alexander is public fame it's the fame of the athlete it's the fame of

00:08:22.040 the orator it's the fame of the politician standing uh on the rostrum and speaking to people

00:08:28.120 there so you achieve fame in the roman republic by being present in that way by being physically

00:08:35.620 present and by swaying your immediate audience and in the same way let's say that alexander wanted

00:08:42.040 the news to go back to athens the news is already there in rome you had to establish your fame in the

00:08:49.960 roman context in the forum there uh in the senate as as did caesar as did cicero as did so many of

00:08:58.580 the roman sort of orator politician types or or politician slash general types well another point

00:09:05.200 you made about the early roman republic was that personal fame was often well it was it was contingent

00:09:11.680 upon increasing the fame of of rome itself so you those so those interests align like if you could

00:09:18.280 advance the fame of rome then you yourself would also become famous yes and and you know as we'll

00:09:24.460 go along i think it's there's an interesting analogy between that and what happens in the 18th century

00:09:29.780 let's say with uh with america the way someone like ben franklin for example increases his own fame and

00:09:38.320 increases the idea of being an american and what and that kind of difference so i mean rome comes on to

00:09:43.920 the public stage in that way not only because it conquers so many people but because it's a famous

00:09:50.080 place and it's a place where fame can can be achieved so it draws people into it in the same

00:09:56.480 way that great cities have drawn people into it ever since and another point you make sort of as you see

00:10:02.660 the evolution of fame particularly you see this in rome and then moving onward is that audiences change

00:10:08.260 like who were you famous for like whose approbation were you looking for in the ancient rome like today

00:10:13.840 we think of fame well i just want to be famous like with people who are alive now and on the internet

00:10:18.580 or whatever but the romans that was part of it but they were also thinking about i want to know

00:10:23.560 like will my posterity be talking about me hundreds thousands of years from now absolutely the you know

00:10:30.880 the words for fame goes back to roman words for speaking and you know the whole question of

00:10:37.640 something of course again that as you say connects with what's happening to us today the whole question

00:10:44.080 of whether your fame is immediate and exists in the present moment or whether your fame will be

00:10:50.620 everlasting is a kind of constant issue in the history of fame if we go back you know in indo-european

00:10:58.160 you know the kind of mother language of europe and so many and other places in indo-european there's

00:11:04.460 a phrase that's called a calc there called undying fame this is what you want undying fame what does

00:11:10.860 that mean that means in the future you will be famous but part of that also is that your fame that

00:11:17.340 real fame real fame in the roman sense starts only after you're dead that is there is the immediate

00:11:24.200 fame of speaking to other people of that immediate audience the people right in front of you and then

00:11:29.720 there is the long lasting fame that people will speak of you after you are gone and continue to

00:11:35.940 speak about you after you're gone so in the history of rome there's the republic and then there's empire

00:11:41.420 did fame change as rome shifted from republic to empire like the concept of fame not not very much i

00:11:48.720 wouldn't think you know there's the you know the real alternative to the kind of fame roman fame i was

00:11:54.240 talking about another sort of roman fame is what's established and discussed and delved into by the

00:12:00.760 writers there virgil in the aeneid ovid in the metamorphosis places like that and they have a very

00:12:06.760 contrasting view of fame there for virgil aeneus leaves troy aeneus comes to then to north africa

00:12:17.780 meets dido dido he and dido fall in love but aeneus has a destiny that's that undying fame has to go on

00:12:27.280 to undying fame and part of going to undying fame is to continue on to found rome and you know to to

00:12:34.420 establish the great city so for virgil the feminine takes you away from you know what ought to be your 0.99

00:12:42.640 your destiny let's say instead of fame versus fate let's say you want your destiny to be this kind

00:12:50.680 of undying famous person who was found in rome ovid takes the the total other point of view in fact

00:12:58.100 for virgil as i said you know the feminine gods and men have to work together to create history 1.00

00:13:06.100 the feminine takes you away from history into the private world it has to be dispensed with he has 1.00

00:13:13.300 to leave dido behind there but for ovid in fact the gods are really competitors of men and rapists of

00:13:23.200 women and are in fact you know what hinders true fame which is private fame so i mean once again you get 1.00

00:13:31.260 that contrast between is the urge to be public the urge to have that audience or the urge to to be

00:13:38.360 private you know to cultivate your own garden you might say as holter did in the 18th century to turn

00:13:44.520 away from the public world and turn into the the world of private life and private values in fact

00:13:50.980 well another group uh in ancient rome that attacked that public nature of fame and advocated for the

00:13:57.280 sort of private fame a private life were the stoics how did they influence the idea of fame the stoics

00:14:03.480 are interesting i you know in terms let's say of the the march of the history of fame i would see the

00:14:09.160 stoics as kind of progenitors or you know early versions of a more what will will come to talk about

00:14:17.160 a christian idea of fame that is a fame that is a fame about eternal values rather than a fame of public

00:14:25.360 life there and stoic values uh stoic internalism turning inward cultivating the self you know rather

00:14:34.300 than the social self the inner self rather than the social self is is something that that leads i think

00:14:41.840 as you know one of the many things that leads to the kind of things that christianity brings in

00:14:47.240 when it contrasts uh christian fame with roman fame you know as jesus does when he holds up that coin

00:14:54.860 in the gospels you know he says render unto caesar and render unto god that's the contrast right there

00:15:00.800 caesar is the immediate world god is the eternal world of course well yeah let's talk about christian

00:15:07.460 because that was the the that was a big attack on on the idea the ancient idea of fame and this is

00:15:12.760 happening during the roman empire and in fact part of the reasons the romans thought the christians were

00:15:18.040 weird and you know deserved persecution was like they they retreated from public life they went to

00:15:24.500 themselves so how did christianity change your ideas of fame well christianity by emphasizing the soul

00:15:32.540 and emphasizing the community the egalitarianism let's say of the community of believers you know we

00:15:38.980 all have a soul in that way identifies you know sort of emphasizes that that kind of inwardness as the

00:15:47.960 essence of personal identity there whereas in the roman context you know you might have had an inner life

00:15:54.320 of course but in fact your identity is really social your identity is among other people there so the

00:16:02.040 community of the faithful versus the community let's say of the orator's audience or the politician's audience

00:16:07.600 is a very sharp contrast it's certainly in early christianity there and i mentioned that you know

00:16:14.020 render unto caesar render unto god thing that is okay what kind of fame is it it's a fame that is in the

00:16:21.840 future it is a fame because who is your real audience your real audience isn't other people your real

00:16:28.420 audience is god you act in a way that god would approve not applauded by other people and that i think is

00:16:35.480 really you know an important and crucial moment in the history of fame where the the christian and

00:16:41.380 let's say the classical the greco-roman views of fame come into direct conflict and what's interesting

00:16:48.300 too i think people overlook this is that christianity like the beginning of christianity

00:16:52.700 paved the way for our modern concept of the individual and before that like you said like you

00:16:59.700 the self was social and so people who basically individualism or what it meant to be an individual

00:17:07.500 was relegated primarily to aristocrats it was very elite very few people christianity said no everyone's

00:17:15.560 the same because we're all children of god and slowly that would lead to i guess i guess a democratization

00:17:22.280 of of of the individual yes absolutely and it's it's very important of course it's it's changed a lot

00:17:31.720 over the centuries but that was really uh incredibly significant at the time uh and later as it you know

00:17:39.180 as it turned into other ways you know you were tracing it up through the idea of individuality i would

00:17:43.820 say that even gets more stressed with the reformation and with the rise of protestantism but in fact um

00:17:51.300 the the idea that you are you are a child of god as you say the idea that everyone is the idea that

00:17:59.800 there's a kind of equality among people that in fact the what would you call it the the kind of uh

00:18:06.540 social coincidence that some people are born aristocrats and others are born plebeians or slaves

00:18:13.500 even that is irrelevant to the way that god sees you and irrelevant to to your relationship to god

00:18:22.180 and this this would pave i mean i think the big one of the big themes in your book is that

00:18:26.800 you weave throughout the book is that fame the idea of of being known becomes more and more democratized

00:18:33.560 as we get closer and closer to the modern era so like before with alexander the great only alexander

00:18:38.420 the great could be famous and then you move to the romans and like well the roman aristocrats could 0.85

00:18:43.160 be famous and then you have this shift with christianity well everyone's a is it has is an

00:18:49.120 individual with worth and dignity and from there people well if i'm just as good as an aristocrat then

00:18:55.280 i should have a claim to being known as well and you started seeing that in the renaissance like

00:19:00.740 this democratization of fame started really taking like going full steam ahead in the renaissance how

00:19:07.560 how did fame change during the renaissance well renaissance is a step in the another step in this

00:19:13.620 history of fame and certainly one of the very important things about the the renaissance i think

00:19:19.760 is that the renaissance looks back to the classical period and it looks back to to the writers and the

00:19:26.260 authors of that period so in the arts then i mean the idea of somebody like i don't know michelangelo for

00:19:32.420 example you know somebody who in fact you know is not an aristocrat doesn't come from doesn't come

00:19:38.360 from a highfalutin social background or anything but is a great artist you know the idea of a great

00:19:44.940 artist that is somebody who has no social cachet at all from his family background can be great i mean

00:19:53.780 that kind of individualization or galileo i mean that is the i the scientists the artists the people who

00:20:01.020 work with their hands and their minds the creators that is the renaissance really focuses on that so

00:20:08.560 so definitely and that is another step there it's not just everybody that may wait i mean that's sort

00:20:15.380 of what's happening now you know but in fact it's people with talent if you have that internal talent

00:20:22.560 if you have that sense of self if you have that ability you can be that they can look back let's say

00:20:29.080 for example to someone like horace horace's poems are all about you know i'm just this guy who lives

00:20:35.080 off in the countryside on a farm but but in fact he has this insight and he has this poetic ability

00:20:41.260 so you know the the breaking down of the hierarchy of class structure i think is is something that's

00:20:49.280 pushed forward tremendously by the renaissance yeah i thought the interesting point you made in the

00:20:53.960 section about the renaissance was during this time artists started signing their work like before that

00:20:59.560 like the works of art were known by the person who was the the patron like the pope or the king that

00:21:05.340 commissioned the piece during the renaissance like michelangelo no michelangelo did this that was a

00:21:11.400 big change well absolutely and this is the moment when the artist before this was an artisan

00:21:18.960 the artist was hired by a church or a patron or whoever it was uh under the you know the the

00:21:25.860 umbrella of international catholicism you know to do an altarpiece to do a statue whatever it was

00:21:32.620 they're an artisan so i mean you were hired for your talent for your ability but you were still a

00:21:37.800 hireling you were still like you know like the like a plumber or somebody like that but with the

00:21:43.100 renaissance the artisan becomes an artist potentially not everybody of course but you know

00:21:48.800 that is you can break out of this because you are in touch with some kind of creativity and you

00:21:54.160 want to be known for having done this you look at medieval things and you know it's always a

00:21:59.280 question in art history who actually did this so when do we start knowing who did this it's really

00:22:05.060 with the renaissance and with people signing things there was an interesting thing i saw in the

00:22:10.740 paper the other day i've forgotten exactly where some some big cathedral again from the middle

00:22:16.840 ages and they found they had never noticed this before but way up in the top there among all the

00:22:23.180 gargoyles and things like that the the sculptor the otherwise anonymous unknown sculptor had done a

00:22:30.500 little figure which presumably was a figure of himself so there's always that there was that urge

00:22:36.980 you know but with the renaissance those kinds of urges come together in the idea of the artist and

00:22:42.900 the artist's particular creativity you know connected to the muse connected to to spiritual beings even

00:22:49.620 we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:22:52.680 and now back to the show all right so the renaissance was another step into this democratization

00:23:00.580 of fame you mentioned the reformation and then also along with reformation like the democratic

00:23:05.620 movements that happened in the the 17th and 18th centuries in like early 19th centuries also

00:23:11.220 shaped how we think about fame what happened in the fame during that period of time well with the rise

00:23:17.240 of protestantism i mean again you have a kind of breaking out i mean you have kinds of fame that

00:23:23.300 didn't quite exist before let's say you know thomas aquinas or other kinds of theologians of the middle

00:23:30.860 ages uh you know were known to their groups and were known to other theologians but somebody like

00:23:35.900 martin luther or somebody like calvin or zwingli or the you know the great figures of the reformation

00:23:42.140 were known for themselves and and part of this part of this is really a crucial element which will i'm

00:23:48.300 sure we'll we'll talk about further is printing printing comes in the dissemination of work you were

00:23:55.580 mentioning about signing a painting what about signing a sermon you know signing a pamphlet you know in

00:24:03.080 so in this time of great religious controversy we have a new medium which allows the image not only

00:24:11.040 the image but also the words the particularly words of of different kinds of speakers different kinds of

00:24:17.760 writers to be disseminated to wider and wider audiences okay and another thing that happened too

00:24:25.360 i thought was interesting during this time you had you know the rise of i don't know capital like you

00:24:30.400 basically like a middle class like an upper it wasn't an aristocrat but they're a middle class

00:24:34.940 and they were able to afford you know they could print their own book if they wanted to or they could

00:24:39.760 even sit for their own painting which was something that only kings did before but now you know an upper

00:24:46.180 middle class i don't know lawyer could do that as well if they wanted to yes that's absolutely true i mean 0.90

00:24:52.780 this is this is the you know the beginning of great age of portraiture uh that people can could have

00:24:59.460 their portraits painted by by the famous painter in town or whoever whoever it might be or even let's

00:25:05.140 say in early america by a traveling painter i would talk about this is a little bit later in the 18th

00:25:10.440 century but traveling painters would go around and do people's portraits and just portraits of families

00:25:15.520 so this idea of you know your personal image the potential for disseminating or let's say creating

00:25:25.160 posterity personal image you know becomes a possibility it's connected to a to a more intense sense of

00:25:33.460 individualism i think you might even you know let's say in a kind of crude formula that soul is turning

00:25:40.200 into self here soul is the basis for self so as you mentioned before earlier something to do with

00:25:49.380 you know in the early christian context it has to do with with personal identity with inner self

00:25:55.200 with the discovery of an inner self and now this that inner self is becoming a self soul is turning

00:26:02.220 into self that is there's a secularization of the christian idea of the soul into the secular idea of the

00:26:09.140 self and so you know the personal desires the efforts to in quotation marks to be somebody uh

00:26:16.320 you know finds its roots in this particular period and again i think we had a pinpoint like a reiterate

00:26:21.900 this is a this is a radical break before that time you were just okay if you were born a peasant

00:26:26.280 you're born on a farm like that's where you'd probably die and then you just kind of accepted that

00:26:31.080 with the things the things like the renaissance the reformation democratic movements the idea was

00:26:37.680 implanted in people's head like no i can actually run a rest fate into my hands and like in in in

00:26:45.240 and shape how i want to be and i can even i have control over my future if i want and i can be somebody

00:26:51.280 if i want to be it's an interesting question interesting point too you know to me in terms of

00:26:57.700 some recent work i've been doing i mean it's at least in england this is a very uh england specific

00:27:03.300 but it's an interesting moment let's say because in the middle of the 17th century the king of

00:27:09.380 england is gets his head cut off by the people of england so this idea that in a monarchy for example

00:27:16.060 what's the fame structure of a monarchy it's it's like a mountain it's like a you know a triangle with

00:27:21.740 an apex at the top where there's only one person there but if you cut off the top if you cut off that

00:27:27.660 that say that in fact that authority can be considered to be illegitimate there then there

00:27:34.000 are all sorts of different ways i mean you know my metaphor for uh for a monarchical view of fame is

00:27:40.020 is a mountain and but for a democratic view of fame it's like a mountain range there are all sorts of

00:27:45.580 ways to get to the top and so the possibility you know the the idea that i have something in me

00:27:52.780 that will make me want to be more than how i was born you know is is a possible is you know is a

00:28:00.240 distinct effort on on the part of many individuals remember remember jesus said you know about me you

00:28:07.520 know again it's intriguing to me you know how so much of this uh secularizes a lot of early christian

00:28:14.980 ideas you know jesus said you had to leave your family and unjoin me to separate yourself from your

00:28:20.040 background there so in this more secular view of fame it's it's very similar you know you separate

00:28:25.500 yourself you are not determined by your background you are not determined by the the level of society

00:28:33.540 that you were born into you are only determined by your ambition your talent uh your sense of self

00:28:40.200 and that that can be very ennobling right inspiring that i i have control but they're also you point out

00:28:46.680 in the book there's some perils with that idea because the peril is well if you're not somebody

00:28:51.720 um based on your grit and whatever then it's your own fault there's and that's it's seen almost as

00:28:58.600 like a moral failure if you're not known publicly for your efforts or merit there's definitely that

00:29:05.220 downside that's the downside i mean individualism let's say you know brings in the positive side of

00:29:12.200 yes i'm going to be untrammeled i'm going to you know you know like in that song fame you know i'm

00:29:18.280 going to live forever you know i got to know how to fly i can do all these things but if you don't do

00:29:24.160 all these things it's then it's a burden then you know say okay it's your own fault you're probably not

00:29:29.940 that good you're probably so that's the negative side as well that's the you know that's the pitfall

00:29:36.260 of of this into you know this democratization of fame if if it's open to everybody why didn't you do

00:29:43.780 it you know what's the matter with you and it yeah and it gets harder to become famous there's there's

00:29:49.040 more competitors for fame because you're competing with everybody yes i mean that mountain range is

00:29:55.540 getting lower and lower it's going to get bigger and bigger wider and wider it's yeah you there's just

00:30:00.900 too many people you know vying for fame and there's crowds uh there so what comes back in the 19th

00:30:10.440 century among some writers i think is is a turning away from that competitive world which we might call

00:30:18.420 commercial civilization and saying that in fact if i'm really good i'm my work will last after i'm

00:30:28.140 going that is the idea of posterity you know the only real test of your work is the audience of

00:30:37.640 people who will be around after you're dead so i mean you know that's that there's a kind of more

00:30:44.320 it's kind of retreat into a what a kind of moral decision that you know you don't even want to be known

00:30:51.640 in the present moment so once again you know that kind of present moment versus the future

00:30:57.820 you know fame in the immediate fame versus fame uh in posterity undying fame there comes into play

00:31:05.940 and also during the 19th century you see this idea of authenticity rise up and i mean that's a word

00:31:13.820 that gets thrown around a lot these days but like what did it mean for like a 19th century artist or

00:31:19.240 writer to be authentic and how did that shape their ideas of what it meant to be famous well i think part

00:31:25.280 part of part of the definition of being authentic in that way from for writers and and for artists

00:31:31.260 uh is um what i was referring to uh earlier about turning away i mean it's the kind of i i refuse

00:31:42.260 immediate fame i mean the whole idea is for example of the avant-garde or the bohemian you know any

00:31:48.520 the idea of people who opt very specifically to step outside the regular social order the right and

00:31:56.080 refuse to climb the social ladder what has now become the social ladder of of becoming famous

00:32:03.180 becoming a known person i think is is really part of this you are authentic because you are true to

00:32:10.740 yourself there rather than true to an audience which might be a degraded commercial audience i mean and

00:32:18.120 you know i think that's that that is a an attitude which we still have with us i mean that is people

00:32:24.960 who are often who who get to be famous artists and writers are feel very nervous about it i remember a

00:32:32.060 old friend of mine who you know was a was actually a great artist and very much celebrated painter

00:32:38.680 told me this story once of how he when he was a young artist and you're working away and somebody came to

00:32:47.540 a studio a rich person and said oh i'm gonna buy on buy 10 or 12 of your paintings and the guy left

00:32:55.580 and uh you know his wife said oh aren't you happy about that and he said no god it's totally depressing

00:33:01.160 i must be an awful artist if this rich person wants my work well yeah like the uh the transcendentalists

00:33:07.980 like emerson and thoreau they talked a lot about that they wanted to you know you march to the beat of

00:33:12.780 your own drummer like thoreau even goes to walden retreats completely from public life right but

00:33:18.240 what's interesting about those guys is like they they had this idea of like spiritual like a spiritual

00:33:22.540 fame right they were famous for posterity or famous for you know they just they did what they want to

00:33:27.060 do but at the same time like they still wanted like a little bit they still wanted that record public

00:33:32.400 recognition from the right people yes you want the you want the appropriate audience you want the

00:33:37.980 right people to recognize you you don't want to become a commercial success in the same way

00:33:44.700 milton's john milton in paradise lost at one point talks about his audience and he says fit audience

00:33:52.300 find though few that is it has to be the fit audience he said i don't care that my work is not being

00:34:00.340 celebrated i don't care that i'm not reaching a lot of people but i want to reach the people who know

00:34:05.640 and the people who can really appreciate me so the the the separation you know the the march to the

00:34:12.820 beat of a different drummer the you know go to walden pond all those efforts of various writers and

00:34:19.340 artists in the 19th century especially in like the first half of the 19th century i would say

00:34:25.100 they you know they want to find that that special that separate audience because in part what does that

00:34:31.540 mean in part it means it's a more intimate relationship it's not being cheered by huge crowds

00:34:37.380 it's a very intimate and private relationship with individual readers viewers listeners whoever they

00:34:45.560 are so it looks like there's a distinction between what we can call like true fame and what we call

00:34:50.620 like vulgar fame or just plain celebrity like that you start seeing that distinction arise in the 19th

00:34:56.160 century well it's also there in rome it's also there in rome i mean the idea of vulgar fame the fame

00:35:01.820 of the vulgus of the you know of the the general versus true fame it's there in virgil even in the

00:35:08.860 aeneid uh you don't you don't want vulgar fame you don't want the fame of large crowds cheering you

00:35:14.420 uh you want the fame of people who really understand you and understand your work another thing

00:35:20.580 something that happened in the 19th century a lot of what we know as popular culture got its start

00:35:25.700 there you see the rise of magazines sports celebrities actor celebrities mass communication

00:35:32.280 and with it you see the rise of the fan it's the birth of the fan in the 19th century how did the

00:35:39.240 idea of the fan how did that change fame and what it meant to be famous i was thinking you know the fan

00:35:44.780 the idea of fandom has an interesting history it's not called a fan for a long time you could say in

00:35:49.360 fact the people who were reading uh luther's pamphlets the people who were amazed at the paintings

00:35:55.360 of uh leonardo da vinci or other renaissance artists or rembrandt could be called fans they're

00:36:01.900 kind of an audience i mean if you keep looking for those kinds of paintings but in fact you know the

00:36:07.080 idea of fan i think really does rely on a kind of sense of popular culture and a sense of of who are

00:36:14.100 the people that you're paying attention to somebody like james boswell uh in the the in the 18th century

00:36:20.800 would go and visit russo he'd go and visit voltaire he became great friends with samuel johnson he wrote

00:36:29.680 the biography of samuel johnson he was like the the first fan a mega fan let's say uh in a lot of ways

00:36:36.120 but with the 19th century of course with the expansion of media in the 19th century you get

00:36:42.220 the expansion of fandom even somebody like lord byron you know had a screen that had pictures of

00:36:49.000 boxers he was very enamored of various boxers on it so there's this sense of the availability of

00:36:57.000 information about people that you could become a fan of through magazines you know through and of

00:37:03.420 course as the century wears on through photography later through and later obviously through radio

00:37:09.540 television etc there too so the expansion of media is an expansion of fandom as well and you know the

00:37:17.360 desire to in a sense what would you call it kind of be in the aura of the famous person this is what

00:37:24.420 the fan really wants the fan gets uh some some shedded fame from being the fan there a kind of sub fame

00:37:33.480 famous people have that have that aura and they have you know oh i saw brad pitt at the supermarket the

00:37:40.580 other day some you know something like that that is oh i'm important you know i had i had this sighting

00:37:45.660 this is things that happen in los angeles all the time of course so it's the fandom is very connected

00:37:53.300 to to the expansion of media and to this enhanced sense of self that the fan gets from being next to

00:38:03.500 or in the audience of the famous person and another point you make too is the fan also plays a role in

00:38:10.360 shaping the celebrity or the the famous person you know before alexander what he alexander the great he

00:38:16.680 had complete control over the message of what what it meant to be alexander like he had the coins he

00:38:21.700 got to basically he he had complete control over public relations when you bring in fans like fans all

00:38:29.140 these different people who you know look up to you they they have a say in what is said about you and

00:38:34.840 that can be kind of scary because it could be good or bad well of course i mean that is you know and

00:38:40.020 this is true we've seen it with with movie stars and they're very aware of this i think that is there's

00:38:45.240 a kind of relationship between the famous person the celebrity and the audience and i would say

00:38:50.240 celebrity almost moments more than famous person because it is really about immediacy when the the fan

00:38:57.280 turns away when the fan decides that the celebrity has done them wrong in some way that could be

00:39:02.900 disastrous for the celebrity or even with the passage of time i mean we look back you know at

00:39:09.300 the at the great actors that we knew when we were younger and you know a lot of them are not around

00:39:14.000 anymore and they're you know they're replaced by new people too so it's you know the the fan the

00:39:20.400 audience of the fans is what what creates helps create the celebrity the celebrity obviously has a lot

00:39:25.760 to do with this you know the celebrity draws you in to begin with but in fact then it becomes a more

00:39:32.080 reciprocal relationship between the fan and the celebrity and you know we can see this in

00:39:37.900 politics certainly you know and when people who are enamored of of a politician or something and all

00:39:44.100 of a sudden decide that that politician has done them wrong or is is irrelevant to the present moment

00:39:49.980 they turn away so in the 19th century you see the democratization of fame you also see this

00:39:56.080 idea of sort of good fame vulgar fame turning away from public fame if that was vulgar but what happens

00:40:03.280 to fame in the 20th century how does it change well i mean from a from a sour point of view from a kind

00:40:09.980 of negative point of view i think fame in the 20th century becomes more and more superficial often

00:40:16.140 that is it's about performance i mean superficial let's say can i use superficial in a kind of neutral

00:40:22.420 way i mean that is it's about surfaces there uh it's about performance i'm just remembering you know

00:40:29.560 carrie grant had a line supposedly where he said that you know every everybody wants to be carrie grant i want

00:40:36.280 to be carrie grant you know that is he had that separation from from his own image there in terms of

00:40:42.720 cultural history and intrigue you know that who's a who's a great hero who's a famous person in the 19th

00:40:48.420 century it's often an inventor it might be an engineer it might be somebody who you know who

00:40:53.380 does uh you know great earthworks and things like that who's the famous person in the 20th century it's

00:40:58.620 an actor an actress it's somebody who performs uh in that way that is what is in other words if you if

00:41:05.820 we recreate the fame hierarchy who's at the top it's really the performers who are at the top in the

00:41:12.500 20th century and performance is is a an aspect of self of social way of being it's who you are to

00:41:21.920 other people it often doesn't have a lot to do with doing anything it's a fame of being rather than a

00:41:29.120 fame of doing there you don't have to achieve anything what did you actually do to become famous

00:41:33.980 doesn't make any difference there is a uh in los angeles for many years there was a woman named 0.63

00:41:40.740 angeline who would appear on billboards driver she drove around in a pink mustang and everything 1.00

00:41:46.860 and once she was asked what you know what you're very famous we see your image around town on billboards

00:41:53.320 and places like that what are you famous for she says i'm not famous particularly for anything because

00:41:59.060 to do anything would undermine the purity of my fame just paraphrasing there but you know it's that is

00:42:06.920 it's pure you don't do anything to become famous you just be and i think that that kind of fame

00:42:13.400 is something that has become much more pervasive in the in the 20th century and and in the 21st century

00:42:20.240 for that matter well let's talk about that you know so you like you said we originally published

00:42:25.040 frenzy in 1986 you did an updated afterward in 1996 you know one of the arguments you make is that as

00:42:31.740 the modes of communication increase and become more democratized the ability to access fame increases

00:42:39.000 like it's more accessible and so basically everyone has sort of like a low-grade fever of frenzy the

00:42:46.060 renown you the 1986 that was right before the internet really took off way before social media now we have

00:42:52.480 the internet and social media where anybody basically with a smartphone and the right app

00:42:58.040 can become famous overnight can go viral i'm curious how is your thinking about like what do you think

00:43:04.040 the state of fame is in the 21st century taking into account all these innovations with communication

00:43:10.000 technology well one thing i feel is that we need another word uh beside famous for this i'm not sure

00:43:17.180 exactly what that would be i mean because yeah you know as we've been discussing you know fame has a lot

00:43:23.040 of positive characteristics to it as we look over the centuries you know fame for for being a great x y

00:43:29.600 or z whatever it is you know a great painter or you know whatever a great general a great politician

00:43:34.300 uh all sorts of greatness that is it's connected to greatness and it's connected let's say to to the eye

00:43:42.360 of posterity that will look upon you uh you know even after you're gone and will think that you did

00:43:48.260 something worthwhile but um these kinds of fames are so evanescent andy warhol of course said that

00:43:55.060 i'm not going to call famous let's say a notable notable saying that in the future people will be

00:44:00.480 famous for 15 minutes but now they could be famous for 30 seconds and you know the question to me always

00:44:07.560 is which 15 minutes you know is it something that you really value is it something that's really

00:44:11.980 worthwhile or is it you know is it just uh you know because you're an influencer because you're on 0.98

00:44:17.780 tiktok you know because you did something funny uh or something idiotic or whatever it is i mean 0.82

00:44:24.180 the democratization of fame doesn't mean that everybody's famous it means that everybody could 0.95

00:44:29.480 be famous but the real question is how do you stay famous how do you stay on top how do you how do you

00:44:36.400 once you get that toehold in the mountain of fame how do you maintain it how do you keep on climbing

00:44:41.780 how do you change what do you do next you know what's you know scott fitzgerald said there are no

00:44:47.100 second acts in american lives uh maybe he was talking about this that is you know you get in

00:44:52.060 there you do your first act it's fantastic then you then you think what else do you have i don't

00:44:56.740 have anything i'm gone this is it i mean as as a cultural critic like what effects do you see

00:45:02.200 this desire to go viral on tiktok or youtube what do you think it's doing to our culture well i think

00:45:09.840 it's it's it's it's fragmenting our attention for for real you know for real fame let's say

00:45:16.860 for real possibilities you know it's uh of course yeah i have to say because of the pandemic

00:45:24.380 i think you know people are looking for distraction the people are looking you know they're playing video

00:45:30.760 games they're doing crossword puzzles they're what they're doing checking out tiktok or instagram or

00:45:36.540 whatever it is there so maybe that has enhanced it i wonder what'll happen you know when keeping

00:45:42.900 our fingers crossed we go back to to the new the old normal or some version of the old normal mixed 1.00

00:45:49.440 with the new normal that is the need for distraction won't be as as intense as it is now so i think that's

00:45:56.200 sort of hot housed a lot of what's been going on with social media you know in the last nine or ten

00:46:01.500 months or so but my you know my main point remains the same that is in terms of these individuals who

00:46:07.940 are doing this on social media what are they going to do next you know what are they going to stay

00:46:12.780 famous do they actually have good taste you know those people who are saying this is the kind of

00:46:16.900 clothes you should wear and and various uh clothing companies and places like that are you know are

00:46:23.680 paying them to do this or you know are the taste moves on too you know taste changes uh as well so

00:46:31.820 much of our lives are lived online now that the you know these people influencers and and etc have a

00:46:40.360 have a role to play whether they'll continue to play that role i'm not sure i would you know i would

00:46:45.360 think things are going to change it's going to change in some way and i think i hope will change a

00:46:51.020 little bit more for the better well yeah in the the afterward in the 1996 edition of frenzy renown

00:46:56.900 you made a call for sort of a restoration of personal honor and dignity to counter this i don't

00:47:03.820 know we would what would we call you don't want to call this what's this social media fame fame but

00:47:09.020 like you're you're you're making a call for something kind of hearkening back to that really

00:47:13.420 i guess ennobling idea of fame that a fame of doing good and helping making the world a better place

00:47:19.140 and being famous for that well i think i suppose i would still stand by that that 1996 afterward in

00:47:27.360 that way it's just a question of what does personal honor and dignity mean to counter the frenzy renown

00:47:33.540 and maybe in terms of the you know our overall discussion of these of these different things

00:47:38.680 it's kind of going back to that internal sense of values let's say that the stoics and other more

00:47:46.580 philosophic groups we're looking for as opposed to the you know the standing in front of other people

00:47:52.720 in large crowds kind of fame what is integrity remember we were talking about authenticity before

00:47:58.180 and we might say you know connect authenticity to integrity do you do you believe in laws do you

00:48:04.420 believe in values and ethics and things like that and do you act in accordance with your belief

00:48:09.800 certainly a lot of people have have stepped up recently during the pandemic you know have

00:48:15.580 contributed in a variety of ways from a position of of values that is what are the values that are

00:48:23.140 involved with this you know it's fun fame you know celebrity fame is fun but it is i'll go back to it

00:48:29.820 it's superficial it's about performance it's not about a kind of acting that has a has a weight that

00:48:37.840 impresses history almost that that connects with with values across time whether those values are

00:48:45.340 eternal values political values legal values whatever they are something a little more abstract let's say

00:48:52.020 something a little more connected to a conception of how my behavior affects other people you know and how i

00:49:02.300 belong to a living breathing community that needs to be continued and needs more people

00:49:10.440 to establish those values and to live by those values well leo this has been a great conversation

00:49:15.720 thanks for your time it's been a pleasure oh my pleasure brett really enjoyed it my yesterday was

00:49:21.820 leo brody we talked about his book the frenzy of renown it's available on amazon.com highly recommend

00:49:26.320 you pick it up it's one of my favorite books it's one of those books where the footnotes are just as

00:49:30.440 interesting as the main text let's check it out find out more information about his work at his

00:49:33.700 website leobrody.com that's l-e-o-b-r-a-u-d-y.com also check out our show notes at aom.is

00:49:40.380 slash fame where you find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic

00:49:43.680 well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our website at

00:49:54.260 artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives well as thousands of articles written over

00:49:57.960 the years and if you'd like to enjoy our ad free episodes the aom podcast you can do so on

00:50:01.140 stitcher premium head over to stitcher premium.com sign up use code manliness at checkout for a free

00:50:05.360 month trial once you're signed up download the stitcher app on android ios and you can start

00:50:08.820 enjoying ad free episodes the aom podcast if you haven't done so already i'd appreciate if you

00:50:12.520 take one minute to give us review an apple podcast or stitcher it helps out a lot if you've done that

00:50:16.080 already thank you please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you would think

00:50:19.920 would get something out of it as always thank you for the continued support until next time

00:50:23.180 is brad mckay reminding you not only listen they went podcast but put what you've heard into action

The Art of Manliness - January 27, 2021

The History of Fame, From Alexander the Great to Social Media Influencers

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript