[pavalercci]

I've read Hacker News for a long time and never published a comment until today.

Ranked by my earnings and by education I'm probably in the bottom 2% of users on this site...but I'm proud to see today that in spite of that fact I'm one of the very, very few who refuses to deify sports celebrities.

By and large the majority of you who throw adoration at Muhammed Ali never lived through his era. You never interacted with him. You never experienced him as a person other than retrospectively through his manicured public image. And yet you revere him unsparingly, without hesitation, without qualification.

How disgusting.

It is this trait in human beings, this desire to worship and affiliate with those one wishes to be like that enables power stratification in society...and always will.

[Tycho]

One of the best qualities people can have is to see the good in something/someone. The bad is of no value, so forget it, but celebrate the good. People here are celebrating the things they admired about a public figure. Likewise you can look at an online community and take heart at how people had a shared recognition of great achievements and are able to celebrate it together. It does no good to dwell on the negative and suppose that people would actually deify someone or support everything they do without hesitation in order to affiliate themselves in some way.

[pavalercci]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. In defense of my mentality:

> One of the best qualities people can have is to see the good in something/someone. The bad is of no value, so forget it, but celebrate the good.

This depends on your objective. If your objective is to be liked by others - then by all means ignore the undesirable aspects of people and things and only acknowledge those which perpetuate warm and fuzzy feelings all around.

My problem with this behavior is that it makes its way into the democratic process, and tends to override objective critical analysis.

I think as a society we need to respect and honor openness and critical thought. Censoring our interactions in a manner that perpetuates some kind of self delusion - although a happy delusion - is counter productive to progress.

> Likewise you can look at an online community and take heart at how people had a shared recognition of great achievements and are able to celebrate it together. It does no good to dwell on the negative and suppose that people would actually deify someone or support everything they do without hesitation in order to affiliate themselves in some way.

That might hold some weight, in this case, if there wasn't an overwhelmingly disproportionate amount of grieving for someone whose life as an entertainer made little impact on the daily lives of others.

Sure, there was admiration and fantasy spread amongst the throngs of enthusiasts who followed the life and times of Muhammed Ali. But had he never existed the world would be no different today.

So I think it is absolutely incumbent on me to outwardly, vehemently condemn the intellectual class (Hacker News) for being so shallow, so superficial, and so sycophantic. We must rise beyond this mentality as a people in order to gain equality and value those who contribute in a more fair sense.

[JakeAl]

I disagree. I think everyone has their own journey and everyone must accept and respect it for the value it offers. Just because you can't see the value or the impact does not mean it's not there. Wings of butterflies and all that. Ali's influence on the world is incalculable. How's that for critical thinking?

"We must"? No, we musn't. If you don't like sports, don't watch them. I don't.

Clearly you come here with an agenda. The goal of your "progress" is by definition regressive. Equality means respecting and defending everyone's rights equally as individuals and not a specific ingroup, such "those who contribute in a more fair sense." That would be collectivism and you appear to be demonstrating authoritarian attitudes and socialist (culturally Marxist) shaming techniques in an attempt to make people feel disconnected from the intellectual elite as a means of coercing them to join your group/cause. We are not your weaponized zombies, shamed into submission and programmed to deliver your message so we fit into what you define as an elite group.

That's called 'malignant narcissism' by the way. How's that for openness?

The right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as individuals is what needs to be promoted if you believe in free will/agency as a goal. And with that you have to accept the good with the bad, whatever you believe them to be.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know freedom meant people doing stuff that sucks." --Summer, Rick and Morty Episode 203: Auto Erotic Assimilation

[Tycho]

In this case there is much more to the story than sports entertainment. Ali was a man who stood up to a government that had conscripted him into a dubious war in a faraway land. He did so on principle, publicly, at great personal/professional cost. People can't help but admire that - a polemicist with skin in the game, someone willing to take risks that all of society will benefit from. And yes this causes a strong emotional response, not just intellectual, in fact I'd say it might be one of the most powerful emotions people feel, but that too is a good thing. It shows an emotional response based on a sound value.

Now, if someone is behaving badly or acting in some subversive way or whatever, then by all means challenge them. But this is about someone who has passed away. None of their negative qualifies matter anymore. What's left is the achievements that people can reflect on, or be inspired by.

[robtaylor]

I preferred HN in the time when you had never published a comment.