Let's Spare Young Justin Bieber, the "Michael Jackson Syndrome"

Sooner or later this year, a jury will determine whether Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician charged in the drug overdose death of Michael Jackson, was guilty of involuntary manslaughter.  Whatever the decision taken in a court of law, the fact remains that this man could only have been an accomplice to murder.  The real perpetrator is still at large, combing the planet in search of tender, new victims.   In fact, that perpetrator is us, the “adoring” public.  We colluded with Michael Jackson’s parents to rip and tear away the fabric of this sensitive young artist’s childhood.  And then we stood back and laughed at what we had created, a young man as disjointed as a Picasso painting.   What have we in store for Justin Bieber?  

The public relations firms hired to promote child entertainers, tell us  “the adoring public,” only what we want to hear.  It is that Michael or Justin or Macauley while being worshipped like divine beings are really leading normal childhoods, unaffected by the floor-kissing prostrations of millions.   It is true that some child entertainers grow up to be functional members of society.  However,  most don't.  

 

But why blame society?  The empirically-obsessed culture in which we live, teaches us to marginalize our own creativity.  Having been stripped of our own creative-impulses, we, the public, devour with our hungry projections those few who refuse to bury theirs.   We convince ourselves that  Michael Jackson had all the talent and us normal folk had none.  Our educational system stomps out the creative urges of the general population, under the assumption that only a marginalized few have anything to offer.  I am not saying that anyone could have performed like Michael Jackson.  But I am expressing the view that the intensity of public hysteria that so easily destroys the childhood of  young entertainers,  is really the voice of our own undeveloped creative-impulses losing the battle to be heard.  If American education gave learning to play an instrument a fraction as much attention as it gives to football, then the mob-like craving to devour our most talented young musicians would fade. 

Video:  "Justin Bieber is Just a Normal Guy:

I look at the PR surrounding Justin Bieber and remember that Michael Jackson at fifteen was portrayed as being normal too.    

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