The Deities of Our Age: Politics, Celebrity, and the Cult of Identity

Foreword: The Pantheon Expands

In our riotous modern carnival of identities - where the cult of the self reigns supreme - we bear witness to the deification of new gods. Behold the deities of our age: the icons of pop culture, the avatars of political movements, the idols of fandom and fanaticism. They bestride our world like colossi, demanding reverence and receiving it in spades from their adoring acolytes.

We are a civilization consumed by the worship of personalities - both those who strut and preen upon the stages of the world, and those who stir the souls of the disenfranchised from the margins. Our pews are the arenas and public squares where we gather to pay homage. Examine the examples before us and see if you can resist being swept up in the fervor.

Terpsichorean Goddesses and their Nubile Priestesses

What is this “Maria” being exalted but a totem of titillation and artifice - a pop priestess whose talent, by all accounts, lies more in the gyrations of her nether regions than in any profound artistic expression? Yet her fans screech their undying devotion like members of a particularly ribald cult.

The temple of entertainment is ever-expanding to include more divinities of dross, more celebrities to be worshiped by the slack-jawed masses craving cheap thrills and tawdry spectacle. We build monuments to these vacuous figures in the form of awards shows - pagan rituals where the statues of bland conformity are presented to the shibboleths of the day amidst a bacchanalia of self-congratulation.

The Sultans of Swing and their Pharisaic Flocks

Then we come to “Amir” - a cricket star whose willow blade is evidently as proficient at dividing public opinion as enemy batters. An athletic champion raised to icon status, only to be cast into the outer darkness by the whims of fandom. His skills with ball in hand appear matched by a talent for courting controversy off the pitch.

Here we see the cult of sporting prowess wedded to the cult of personality in bellicose union. The arenas of sport are our modern-day colosseums where the mobocracy gathers to trumpet their champions one day and bay for blood the next. The fickle affections of these fanatics expose the hollowness of their adulation - as Amir seems to have discovered to his chagrin.

Martyrs and Monuments of Irredentism

But surely the most pernicious form of deification occurs in the fetishization of political totems and the martyrs of ethnic or sectarian causes? Witness the hagiographic treatment afforded the flagellants of IPOB - beatified by their own adherents for their relentless championing of a mythical homeland.

There is an undeniable atavism in these impulses - to erect effigies to the fallen and inscribe their names in the liturgy of irredentist fantasy. The tribalistic arrogations and theocratic rhetoric of such groups drape themselves in tawdry vestments of patriotism while answering to far more grubby resentments and supremacist conceits.

We build temples to inhuman selfishness and crown its emissaries as saints. The consequences, rendered in fresh air strikes and body counts, should provoke us to erase these idolatries rather than solemnize them.

Eternal Verities, Ephemeral Idols

In contemplating these deified totems of our navelgazing era, one is struck by the transience and superficiality of their worship. What permanence is there in the cult of a pop starlet’s derriere? What profundity in the sanctification of a pugilist wielding leather spheroids? What redemption in venerating the dogmas of separatist fantasists?

Our democracies of desire have become cleared of all supreme and eternal values - instead we supplicate ourselves at the altar of the meretricious and evanescent. Ours is a culture consumed by the Norma Desmonds of this world, fading superstars desperately crying “adore me!” from their boudoirs as the delirious hordes dutifully bay their hollow prayers.

We are captivated by these fetishes and shibboleths, erecting them into totems to be gawked at and venerated while stern ancestors of true moral rectitude avert their eyes in shame. Icons erected today are relics tomorrow once their sheen of novelty has worn off and a new suite of deities ascends to replace them.

Perhaps this is the ineluctable condition of our modern idolatry - to have our shrines incessantly rebuilt and our gods constantly swapped out like so many dusty knickknacks on a mantelpiece. If so, we damn ourselves to chasing after every shifting vapor trail and noxious fume that passes for meaning and significance in this benighted era.

Epilogue: False Idols

In the end, perhaps these are the idols we deserve - frivolous icons to match our frivolous obsessions. The cult of celebrity, the fetishization of ethnicity, the sanctification of the insolent and unworthy - our sins are woven inextricably into the fabric of this godless century.

Let us inculcate a new ethic - an austere abhorrence of the vulgar panegyrics and fetid paeans that elevate these baubles to the status of gods. Instead of Mary or Amir, let us revere truth and ethics. Rather than constructing shrines to IPOB, we should look to enlightened moral philosophies that succor all humanity rather than anointing new petty deities and cravenly dividing ourselves.

The detritus and dross of our empty age calls out to be swept aside in favor of a more cosmopolitan commitment to reason and universal values. Only then can we dismantle the idols of salacious entertainment, athletic tribalism, and identity obsession - and clear the way for a renaissance of humanism to take root. Our enduring test is to neither worship nor revile these false gods, but to simply set them aside and stride, liberated anew, towards nobler summits yet unexplored.