Once a Spectacle, always a Spectacle

You may want to opt out of public sphere, the public sphere will celebrate you as one who has opted out of public sphere and will make a spectacle out of you

Public sphere is a funny notion. It is a spectacle first and foremost and even the rejection of public sphere calls for some spectacle of rejection.

JM Coetzee is notorious for being a recluse. "JMC never smiles", goes the legend about him. He is not accessible. Thomas Pynchon goes further. With him, it is, "No one can even see good old Tom" in the first place, let alone access him.

And yet, JMC is John Maxwell Coetzee after all. He has won Nobel and Booker prizes. Public sphere sells him as a Nobel laureate, no matter what he does with his self imposed seclusion.

Good old Tom is Thomas Pynchon after all and his books are sold and read by public sphere with relish. He is notoriously private? "Fine", they say, "we shall add this to the "Brand Pynchon" and sell him more vigorously". "Read the new novel from the celebrated writer of "Gravity's Rainbow", who, no one can claim, has ever seen with mortal eyes".

There is no anonymity in public sphere except the absolute anonymity and the absolute is absent. Absolute is invisible. Nobody knows about it. It's not a part of the scheme. All else is a theater of public sphere.

You may want to opt out of public sphere, the public sphere will celebrate you as one who has opted out of public sphere and will make a spectacle out of you.

Once a spectacle, always a spectacle, my dear Non existent Knight!