Hollywood and the hierarchy of needs

Reality demonstrates that people act on their basest needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs says that basic needs are things like food, shelter, safety, and security. 

If one progresses up the scale, needs like love, belonging, esteem, and respect become important.

Which brings us to HOLLYWOOD (note how I have put that in scary caps - because it is a frightening place with frightening attitudes and I know because I have worked there
as a writer - so been there done that and got the t shirt)

Hollywood is a competitive place to live and work. People who live and work there know that it might be the most competitive place to live in the entire world. The drive to succeed, to find an edge that propels you to the next level can be very compelling

Cut back to the chase, it would be fair to say that the bejewelled and tuxedoed audience for Meryl Streep's speech at the Golden Globes (the solipistic group hug)

had already had their basic needs met in their oh so bourgeois profession.

So what drives these soi disant 'artists' like a herd of buffalo to the liberal grasslands?

Erich Fromm said, “If I am what I have, and I lose what I have, who am I?” 

Think of that audience losing what they have, how do they protect themselves against that worst than death fate.

For many Liberalism, in it’s cult-like compulsion toward legalistically defined behavior can be viewed as a quasi religion, as opposing views are made illegal in law by supine politicians,

Although indubitably in the lush 'moral'grasslands of society by 'moral' necessity, although a specious ploy, they must appear to align themselves with those who have been denied 

grazing rights.

The result of all this is that the artist dwells in the realm of emotion. While all of us experience emotion, the rest of us have the luxury of moving on. Not the artist. He has to dissect it, magnify it, and live it for months on end. 

Then, like some cruel joke, the artist is often rewarded for his attention to detail in describing for all of us the precise most painful components of pain, loss, grief, insecurity  and other emotional parts. 

Thus, the artist is conditioned in a Pavlovian way to act based on emotion. It would seem natural that he would then transpose that action on other elements of his life, including his marriage, his friendships, and his politics, in their political manque way.

Speaking of Politics - why of why do actors 

pepper their persona's with their views on politics when the majority of them are profoundly uneducated, 'My child is not very academic I think she should pursue the Arts.' (This of course, nust be balanced, this does not apply to all actors, in the current generation Eddie Redmayne went to Cambridge and Jack Lemmon to Harvard.

None the less, the Professoriat in the Arts and Humanitie  are 25 to 1 Liberal, those in Medicine, Engineering and Science are approx' evenly divided.  So I would submit that 
those pursuing an Arts/Humanities education are schooled in the embedded Liberal views of their teachers.  Having done three degrees myself over 7 years  I do not think I ever
heard an illiberal view.  I did once express an illiberal view myself and the Professors 
started agitating as if dancing on hot coals. 

So the question becomes then–why do artists feel compelled or qualified to delve into the Political when they have no training for it at all, and even their life experience lacks credentials necessary to relate to real Americans who don’t live in Hollywood? Should they not simply exclude themselves, much like a judge does when she knows she has conflicting experience that might impede her rational judgment in a case? Well, no, because we believe in freedom under the US Constitution–even under the knowledge that freedom could result in loss of liberties for having them.

 Frontpagemag.com, John J. Ray has a theory about fame and ego that is too good to paraphrase:

My basic proposal, then, is that most (but not all) Leftists/liberals are motivated by strong ego needs — needs for power, attention, praise and fame. And in the USA and other developed countries they satisfy this need by advocating large changes in the society around them — thus drawing attention to themselves and hopefully causing themselves to be seen as wise, innovative, caring etc

We will see below why one of the most consistent themes to emerge from the Leftist’s love of change is the claimed need for “equality”. And the belief in “equality” also tends to lead to support for such things as redistribution of wealth generally, heavily “progressive” income taxes, inheritance taxes, foreign aid, feminism, gay rights and socialized medicine. Again for reasons explored below, Leftists also tend to oppose religion and the churches and this in turn tends to mean that they favour abortion and oppose or obstruct religious schooling in various ways. So let us now briefly look at some of these characteristic Leftist/liberal themes to see how they relate to basic Leftist motives.

And he concludes:

But in all cases, bitter experience has shown that Leftists in power are very dangerous and destructive people. Where their power is effectively unchecked, they generally seem to resort sooner or later to mass murder (as in the case of the French revolutionaries, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Jim Jones and many Communist regimes and movements worldwide) and where they are partially thwarted by strong democratic traditions and institutions, they at least bring about large-scale impoverishment (as in post-independence India and pre-Thatcher Britain)

All people including artists want to believe that their work is meaningful and significant. For artists, this propels their belief that human nature is changeable with proper “education” which thereby gives credence to their work. Thus, to believe in their own meaningful output of work product, they must fancy themselves “educators” capable of changing people in important ways. Did they ever in their arrogance reflect that educating others might smack of the bridle.

Hollywood whose real artistic soul is made up of cash registers, night take heed post Trump.
Hollywood and it 'liberal artists'  is marketing today to a glowingly conservative consumer. Conservatives are crying out for family oriented, morally compelling, traditional values that once graced the silver screen and our television sets.

The heart of America is sentimental for a turn back to the roots of Hollywood. If the market is demanding enough, it just might result in the artists resorting to Maslow’s Hierarchy to make a living to meet their basic needs, and that might look a lot like the recent Trump election.

I would argue using the word Hollywood and its soi disant 'artists' as a template are not paid for tapping into the power of rationale, but rather, the power of emotion, closeted in mink they have no real reason to exercise or even acknowledge the rational argument of a situation.

When an artist takes a look at how to “fix” a social or economic problem, it shouldn’t surprise us that they are looking for heroes and villains. So for Ms Streep je suis
a vicitim as are all Hollywood.  All together now, even if you are in your limousine
je suis a victin. Hollywood a majority of its inhabitant are swathed in vulgar riches and perpetrators, and for bigger than life fantasies that aren’t based in reality.

For Meryl Streep to play the self pitying victim card in her speech was an insult to rationale.

As to the them all being Liberals, of course Ronald Reagan would usurp the above argument, as would Clint Eastwood but then they  had a 'make my day' quality.

Those prized holier than thou morals of the Liberal class are no more than opinions

just as the statements I have made in this post are no more than theories.