It was August 6th, 2018 when the West Hollywood City Council was in the process of negotiation and voting in removal of the star for President Trump on the Hollywood Walk of Fame by pressuring the Los Angeles City Council and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to go with the vote result on that night. The West Hollywood City Council was providing justification for the removal as "his [President Trump's] disturbing treatment of women and other actions that do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood, the region, state, and country." (Folley, TheHill) Despite the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce stating "in the past that it would never remove stars because of a backlash," (Folley, TheHill) the West Hollywood City Council argued further their justification by arguing that the Hollywood Walk of Fame "is still the "property of the City of Los Angeles" (Folley, TheHill) and finally "voted on Monday night to remove the president's star." (Gumbel, TheGuardian)
Although the removal has become symbolic in nature as the Walk of Fame was not in West Hollywood's domain, still there is something quite disturbing about this incident. There are actually three disturbing facts realized through this incident.
Fact number one is that the city council specifically targeted only President Trump when there were other glorified celebrities who conducted misdeeds to women such as Bill Cosby: "Liberal hand-wringers pointed out that the resolution said nothing about Bill Cosby…accused of abusive sexual behavior whose star remain intact." (Gumbel, TheGuardian) This perhaps indicates that the whole real intention behind the resolution was quite truly political in nature despite claims of for the cultural decency of America. And it is further seen through the wordings used in the resolution such as "his disturbing treatment of women…do not meet the shared values of the City of West Hollywood, the region, the state, and country." (Folley, TheHill) I guess the West Hollywood City Council is now the main voice of California and the United States of America.
Fact number two is that democracy seems to be not of that of the people but rather exist for something else like an ideal. In order to understand this, you must acknowledge that the degree of depth when describing people has some serious variations in what is considered as for the or pertaining to the people. Henceforth, for this reason, there is two considerations when describing the people in this case: the people The Individual and the people The Collective Conscious. The people The Collective Conscious is the general voice of the public towards an issue. However, this "voice" constitutes only the Majority of that particular time frame which in thus does not include and eliminates other free will of expressions within the "voice" and henceforth, the need of an expression "general" prior to the word "voice". And also, the general voice can be manipulated through various influences like lobbying, populism, and so on. On the other hand, the people The Individual is simply the individuals within the word "people". Individuals just like you and I. But as we consider through the actions of the West Hollywood City Council, we could see a very dangerous point: President Trump not pleasing to the ideal of the collective conscious supported by the West Hollywood City Council…the collective conscious will crush the individual or at least condemn the individual until the individual gets crushed by the pressure. The Collective Conscious suppressing The Individual…perhaps this is not democracy but a well-hidden and sophisticated version of Communism/Socialism (whichever you prefer) within the free market world.
And last but not least, the fact number three is that the act of "removal" of President Trump's star shows that the so-called Collective Conscious does not exist by itself with its capital letters but instead are in reality exists many other collective conscious(s). The various collective conscious(s) involved could be those who are supporters of President Trump, those who are not in support of President Trump, those who want to maintain the President's star as a cultural artifact, those who want to remove artifacts because of the symbolism and association of the artifacts (what it [artifact] is interpreted as at the time), and so on.
The three facts forces us to make a disturbing but yet real question in mind: Is the Democratic Society for the People the Individual, the Collective Conscious, or perhaps for Something Else?
