Diocese of Liverpool

Thought for the Day, 27 October 2003

The Rt Rev. James Jones

Good Morning

“All the world's a soap and all the men and women, merely extras”

So says Roger McGough in a poem specially written for the Lord Mayor of Liverpool's Civic Service.

Parodying Shakespeare's ‘seven ages', McGough sees us all as ‘bit players, who drift in and out of the action'.

The stories currently dominating the media seem to be reducing everything to the level of a soap opera. Feverish speculation about the Tory leadership and the unseemly bean-spilling of a former butler in the papers are just two examples of trivialising public life, in this case politics and the monarchy.

The media, which cover both the serious and the frivolous, are creating a strange world in which the frivolous is being taken seriously and the serious treated flippantly.

In this new world old boundaries are blurring. So now we have politicians who become TV personalities and film stars who become Governors and Presidents. And this week the celebrities Brad Pitt and Jennifer Ariston are to visit the Middle East on their very own peace mission. Well, God bless them.

But in the fusion of the big screen, the little screen and real life it seems we are moving to a stage where the world is to be governed by celebrities! We are creating a Celebritocracy. Indeed, politics, monarchy, the law, business and even the church is simply a means by which people gain a celebrity-status, and join the ranks of the celebritocrats alongside the stars from film, sport, the stage and the catwalk.

But where is all this coming from? It would be convenient to blame the media. And, in my opinion the media are not blameless! But in the end they are only the media, a channel, a conduit between one thing and another.

And that ‘another' is us – who listen, read, watch and dream. Yet what is it about our impoverished souls that make us feast on the crumbs snatched from the table of these celebrities and surrender so gullibly to this new world? I think the clue lies in that speech by Shakespeare. It ends:

‘Last scene of all, that ends this strange eventful history is second childishness, and mere oblivion, sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.'

If ‘oblivion' is our soul's end, then there is - No destiny by which to set a compass for the journey, No ultimate standard by which to govern our lives, No higher authority to whom we are all accountable.

If all the world is just a stage, just a TV screen, just a soap opera, then the stars will become not only our rulers but also our gods.

And all you have to do to reach them, to join them in their pantheon of fame is, as Andy Warhol once predicted, to be famous for just fifteen minutes! Such is the world of celebrity where the soul is washed only in soap.