[bagster]

The Top 10 Most Trusted People in America are:

Where did we go wrong as a civilization when ENTERTAINERS are the most trusted people.

What have they done that they deserve our trust? Honestly.

In days of yore (back before journalist schools) actors, along with jugglers, clowns, mimes, acrobats, sword swallowers, bearded ladies, Jo-Jo the dog faced boy, etc, were looked down on as the dregs of society. And rightly so.

Let's return to those good days.

Here's a diddy explaining my mood of the moment on this matter.

Did lovers really fall in love to stay....

Bagster

[AZLiberty]

Where did we go wrong as a civilization when ENTERTAINERS are the most trusted people.

This phenomenon may be due to something as simple as what Tversky and Kahneman call the "availability bias (or heuristic)".

Wikipedia: The availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that relies on immediate examples that come to a given person's mind when evaluating a specific topic, concept, method or decision. The availability heuristic operates on the notion that if something can be recalled, it must be important, or at least more important than alternative solutions which are not as readily recalled. Subsequently, under the availability heuristic, people tend to heavily weigh their judgments toward more recent information, making new opinions biased toward that latest news.

In a celebrity-focused culture (such as people who might respond to a Reader's Digest poll), celebrities are what first come to mind. I don't know if this is who people really trust.

I implicitly trust my wife more than anyone else. Every day she is in a position to put a knife between my ribs, and yet she somehow prevents herself from doing so. I implicitly trust my bank with my money. Would I trust Tom Hanks with anything important? Perhaps, but only because I believe he would want to avoid bad publicity. But I would definitely want a webcam if I hired him as a babysitter.

[Swordmaker]

In days of yore (back before journalist schools) actors, along with jugglers, clowns, mimes, acrobats, sword swallowers, bearded ladies, Jo-Jo the dog faced boy, etc, were looked down on as the dregs of society. And rightly so.

The reason for their dismal reputation is they were traveling entertainment. There were few towns large enough to support a permanent entertainment class, or the same acts on a repeated basis. They had to move to maintain novelty.

When things disappeared through theft, it was easier to blame the strangers who had just been in town than to blame local talent, and perhaps rightly so. payment for entertainment service was lowly, again because of the reputation of such itinerant movement, and in some areas one still had to pay for room and board above what one could earn. Thievery and prostitution were one way the artistes could make ends meet. The Illusionists and Magicians who did card tricks also get their starts as gamblers (dishonest) and pickpockets. So things DID disappear when such shows came to town.

Another reason for disapproval of such low-lifes is that travelers were a means of disease spreading among villages. Towns were insular and had little contact except for travelers. Any disease would likely appear a few days after the appearance of a band of such travelers/entertainers, especially sexually transmitted diseases.

Is it any wonder that people tended to look down their noses at such "low lifes?"