Hubbard set up the Church of Scientology in Hollywood in 1954 for a reason. He understood that celebrity was increasingly a feature of American public life, and celebrities themselves were going to be worshiped as minor deities were in the ancient world. The idea was: if you could get them, think how many people would follow.
Interpretation
The quote discusses how celebrities are viewed in society and the power they hold over the public.
Lawrence Wright's quote highlights the understanding of L. Ron Hubbard that celebrities possess significant influence and control over public perception. By establishing the Church of Scientology in Hollywood, he aimed to harness this power of celebrity, suggesting that just as ancient societies revered their deities, modern society tends to idolize famous individuals. This reflects on the dynamics of fame and belief in contemporary culture.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of celebrities in shaping culture, this quote can be used to illustrate the historical context of fame.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and coalition partners stands as one of the greatest blunders in American history. The Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, rose out of the the chaos, throwing the region into turmoil that hasn't been equaled since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
When I was trained as a journalist, as a race-relations reporter in Nashville covering the end of the civil-rights movement, we were strictly forbidden to use the first-person pronoun. There was kind of an electric charge around it. To come out from hiding and use the word 'I' carried a lot of fright for me.
The word religion comes from an origin which means "coming together." But priesthood has been doing just the opposite, it has created splits in man, not oneness. Religion means creating in man an organic unity; it has nothing to do with God, it has something to do with you. It has nothing to do with worship, it has something to do with a transformation of your own consciousness.
Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.
This was a Golden Age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying... but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice... but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks... but nobody loved it.
No effect of work can be eternal.
The world to me was a secret, which I desired to discover; to her it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations of her own.
Every established order tends to produce the naturalization of its own arbitrariness.
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