Do I have to write about Miley?

I saw a link to this graph allegedly comparing searches for "Miley Cyrus" and "chemical attack Syria". As you probably expect, if you know Americans, the former is an order of magnitude higher than the second. We all know that the flailings of a starlet hoping for attention (that will mean new contracts) aren't life and death issues like poisonings and revolution in Syria. It is almost offensive to compare the two in terms of value or newsworthiness.

I had proposed to ignore the whole business, but it keeps nagging at me. Why make such a fool of yourself, and why that way?

OK, I get it that she was some kind of child star, playing a star with a secret identity as a normal wholesome girl, and she wanted to make it clear she wasn't a little girl anymore. Aren’t there other ways of being adult than stylized sex? (I didn’t see the show, but the inescapable stills are remarkably unattractive. (Is she in training to be a frog?) I don’t say un-sexy because that's not really the same thing: perhaps you had to be there to get it.)

It often seems as though the only distinctive we recognize for adulthood is sexual desire. Is that all there is?(*) Nothing of responsibility, wisdom, authority—nothing but sex? That may not be a surprising news story, but that’s a big deal—if that’s all we want from adults that’s all we’re going to get.

And it seems to be accepted wisdom that a desire is unworthy of the name unless it is overwhelming. If you have self-control, you must have wimpy desires—don’t humiliate yourself by mentioning them.

Self-mastery is tough enough already; if we disparage it what will we wind up with? You need a touch of self-denial to prepare for the future, not to mention to behave responsibly today. Again, not a surprising news item but a big deal—a bigger long term deal for the culture and country than a mindless flailing around with a country we don’t intend to go to war with.

So to prove she was an adult she had to act as though out of control sexually. But, of course, in a way that wouldn’t get her arrested—funny how self-control enters the picture anyway.

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(*)I wanted to play that song for a study on Ecclesiastes, but decided it would take too long and break the rhythm of the study time.