MIchael Jackson R.I.P.: What Killed Michael Jackson? (Uninteresting Question)

What killed Michael Jackson?" is one of the headlines on Druge. It is a question in which I am not interested, and in which no one should be interested (except the authorities whose job it is to find out).


I know what killed Michael Jackson (in all probabiliby, although some people actually do have their heart "give out" at 50 for no reason at all except a weak heart). What killed Michael Jackson was the same thing that killed Elvis, and the same thing that killed Anna Nicole Smith. What killed Michael Jackson was a lifesyle out of control.


Jackson has been a comic/tragic figure for some time. Is his death really more important that tjat of the many WORTHY people who will die today, but who happen not to be famous? Nope, it obviously is not.


Now Michael Jackson's LIFE might be useful, if people drew the right lesson from it. I never much liked Michael Jackson's music, and I am not much of a music lover in general (not going out of my way to listen to music, although I appreciate some music whin I hear it, including "classic" rock and roll). However, even I could see that MIchael Jackson had TALENT. It was talent he basically threw away because of an inability to control his own bizarre and selfl-destructive impulses (not unlike, in some ways, chess champion Bobby Fischer, who may not have killed himself so obviously, but pretty much killed his talent).


For example, Mark Sanford could have learned from Micael Jackson. I am not one to say that everyone should "conform" to the norm. I certainly don't. No one, I think, really does, despite the efforts of central planners to mold us all into one, approved, lifestyle. But when you behavior is obviously bizarre, and self-destructive, you should examine yourself.


In the end, Michael Jackson really was more a comic figure than a truly tragic one. His was not the one "fatal flaw" of tragedy, but the obvious "flaws" of farce. Too bad so many ordinary people follow the same path of drug use and/or bizarre attempts to escapte the world of reality into a fantasy world or their own. To a degree, almost all leftists do that, with their bizarre belief in coercive central planning as the answer to all problems people have.


Was Michael Jackson mentally ill? I tend to agree with Dr. Szasz that such is a sterile question to ask. Oh, I don't question that there is such a thing as mental illness. But people make bizarrely wrong choices without being "clinically" mentally ill. And it really is pretty much impossible to define "inanity" (which is why I OPPOSE the "insanity defense" to criminal behavior). In the end, Michael Jackson made many wrong choices. I don't think he can escape repsonsibility for those wrong choices.