To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: The media as drug dealers, feeding our interest in (addiction to) sex, violence and celebrity
Date: Saturday 12 June 04

Dear Karen,

In response to your interesting article in today's Guardian, "From Buddha to Beckham":

"Throughout the ages we have had the heroes we deserve", you say.  Really? I remember being told something very similar about countries and their governments. It puts those of us with fine heroes and progressive governments in a good light and on a high place from where we can look down on the less "deserving".

Celebrity is to a very large extent a product of the media, which makes its fortune by selling it to us, along with sex, violence etc., as a drug, on which many, perhaps all of us, in one form or another, are dependent. 

We do not hesitate to blame drug dealers for plying their nocuous trade, and to see the addicts as (deserving?) victims in need of help. Why should we be less damning of the media, who, just like drug dealers, are also doing it for the money?

Notoriety, you write, has become an end in itself. I don't think so. There is an infantile part in all of us which craves attention, while the media makes its living from getting people's attention. These, not "notoriety", are the ends.

"The wealthy lifestyle of our celebrities, proudly flaunted on websites and in Hello magazine", is not just "cruel and insulting" to those who lack the basic necessities of life, it is also a (perhaps the) major obstacle to achieving sustainability on our imperilled planet, Spaceship Earth, and thus a mortal threat to us all. 

Celebrities act as role models for 100's of millions of people, whose extravagantly materialistic lifestyles are already altering Earth's climate, depleting its natural resources and decimating its biodiversity. Eventually its carrying capacity will be exceeded, the consequences of which will be a drastic reduction in human numbers, perhaps even the extinction of our species.