Extremity

Er, thanks.

Yeah, you asked a lot of questions. Being an artist, I am trying to push the limits of the question / answer dichotomy.

Am I the only one that thinks that the Hilton sisters are going to be starring in a future version of:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005KHJX.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

wasnt Quentin Crisp one of those types who was famous simply for being famous?

To attempt to answer some of your questions, Andrew, I think striving for a personal extremity, particularly when it comes to art, is good and to be expected. Extremity doesn't have to mean "shocking," necessarily, just pushing yourself to the limit of what you can do. Finnegans Wake is an extremity, though not extreme in a Mountain Dew sense (well, depending on who you ask). But I think what you're asking is, what happens when a whole lot of individuals simultaneously strive for their own extremities? How do you get heard over the din? That would seem to result in "extremity" as you're referring to it. What's the alternative? I'm not sure. Silence?

I think it's important to remember, too, that every extremity becomes the beginning of some other extremity.

creativity == extremity?

I had exactly the feeling you describe in your last but one sentence when watching the Horizon 'time travel' prog last night on BBC2.
The first 2/3 was interesting but standard exposition of the history of the theory since Einstein - Godel, Tipler, wormholes etc.
The last 1/3 however spun off into this insane SF Horror nonesense about ppl being virtual simulations created by future computer programmers in order to bring the past into the present, a form of 'time travel'. The theory goes that most of us could be perfect recreations of humans and wouldn't knoiw it, or have free will because the environment around us was alkso being created and controlled by computer geeks. And then some eminent scientists discussed this theory as if it were possible. Now this is just about the most far-fetched extemist sensationalist soul-destroying crap i've ever seen in a serious science programme, and that's saying something for Horizon. And it did fill me with a cliched "you fools,
you damn fools, haven't you seen 2001" feeling about our destructive mania for developing and exploiting new technology, often to the expense of our dignity and humanity. All those god-awful Dark Visions of the future you get in SF comics/films like Bladerunner where , like, just INEVITABLY human beings have gone technology-mad and it's killed their soul and brought about endless war and the death of nature - i hate that vulgar shit, it's soul-sickening.
And here was a respected science strand proposing just that.
Aren't human beings smarter than that?
Essentially this is what i thought of when i read
"all collectively rushing towards some end-point, a singularity of attitude and experience that will tear us apart".

Other than that, i think all the other things you mentioned are fairly normal, standard things that human beings do/have done throughout history/civillization. And they're fairly healthy too, i reckon. Displaying emotion or encouraging the display of emotion eg artists pushing boundaries is, on the whole, good. It's those who do not feel emotion and do not understand it that we should worry about (cf all my points above).
I think that because we live in a 'decadent' society (Not a pejorative term) we occasionaly throw our hands up in disgust at the bad art and the Paris Hiltons - because it's unrelentingly THERE and in our face, on the net, in the news, haunting our dreams and subconscious like so psychic trash we can't take out. But ultimately, i figure, it's human beings, it's colour and life, and it adds to the gaiety of nations. If we live in a world/big city populated by other human beings, chances are SOME of them will behave like idoiots SOME of the time. Just laugh it off. It's all been done before. We're all damn pathetic.

Big x-post

If only Barbara Hutton had had her own TV show!

Hello, Paris was in Zoolander; fame followed as a direct result

weren't the Gabors famous for being famous too?

not to mention, like, most of the british nobility?

the whole aristocracy just because thing seems like its been around for a long time.

Famous for being rich started when people invented being rich.

Isn't Zsa Zsa an actress?

The likes of Tamara Beckwith and Tara Palmer-Tompkinson have been around for longer than Paris Hilton with even less discernible reason for their "celebrity".

You're also got to remember that she's famous for being "a cum-guzzling slut".

Rich, yes. Famous, I spose so. Interesting, yagottabekiddin.