IMO - the latter. A politician has always an option of using force to make people like him/her. It may be unsuccessful of course, but the entertainers don have it at all.
Your three points are spot-on. Especially the first one. There is a reason the term limits in government were introduced - being a leader for too long affects your mind, critics fade away, you become surrounded by an ever growing crowd of sycophants, the new ideas simply do not reach you, you lose a torturing self doubt, so necessary for a creative genius. You become arrogant, you become god. This is how it works for heroes who ultimately become tyrannical emperors - from Aeneas to Napoleon. Or for ultimate tyrants - such as Adolf or vladimir. But it does not work for thought leaders or entertainers- exactly for the reason you mentioned: they become non-interesting. To paraphrase- the pomposity killed the cat.
It's interesting you distinguish why entertainers can't maintain in the same way. Could we argue in the land of digital that today an entertainer and a politician have vastly similar mechanics - one garners eyeballs, the other votes. Or is the linchpin of being interesting so fundamental to the job that the trap is set much earlier for entertainers to fall off (a term gen z uses to describe loss of clout)z
IMO - the latter. A politician has always an option of using force to make people like him/her. It may be unsuccessful of course, but the entertainers don have it at all.
Your three points are spot-on. Especially the first one. There is a reason the term limits in government were introduced - being a leader for too long affects your mind, critics fade away, you become surrounded by an ever growing crowd of sycophants, the new ideas simply do not reach you, you lose a torturing self doubt, so necessary for a creative genius. You become arrogant, you become god. This is how it works for heroes who ultimately become tyrannical emperors - from Aeneas to Napoleon. Or for ultimate tyrants - such as Adolf or vladimir. But it does not work for thought leaders or entertainers- exactly for the reason you mentioned: they become non-interesting. To paraphrase- the pomposity killed the cat.
It's interesting you distinguish why entertainers can't maintain in the same way. Could we argue in the land of digital that today an entertainer and a politician have vastly similar mechanics - one garners eyeballs, the other votes. Or is the linchpin of being interesting so fundamental to the job that the trap is set much earlier for entertainers to fall off (a term gen z uses to describe loss of clout)z
Lots of good points here. Reminds me of this characteristically harsh, but equally characteristically well-written, Sam Kriss piece: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-problem-with-podcasts/
Shucks! I can't get in to that one but I just found another one he wrote on the topic....thank you! He's formidable