The peculiar modern obsession with celebrity voyeurism is typically unattractive but often instructive: one can argue that our preoccupation with fame signifies the persistant recognition of Aristotle’s magnanimity, albeit in a deformed version, against the regnant leveling tendencies of egalitarianism and relativism. Of course, our desire for equality sometimes shines through in the element of schadenfreude-we often revel in the failures of those we simultaneously elevate. Likewise, our new aristocratic elite are not exactly the "best of men" and so much more familar to us than ever before. Still, part and parcel of modern consciousness seems to be the illusion of self-sufficency or autonomy versus the reality of a powerful amour propre—especially in my students, I often find a overwhelming desire to persuade others they are indifferent to their opinion. In short, we have become reflexively suspicious of honor—it simply presupposes too much dependence upon others to be all that palatable. Nevetheless, the eros for celebrity does seem to reflect a genuine desire for individual significance that transcends, even betrays our very modern, very narrow sense of individuality.
