> Added to that, there is a sense of uncertainty or instability. When
> a friend or relative dies, you lose a beloved part of your life--
> when a loved and trusted national leader dies, you also lose a
> stabilizing figure in your society. It's a political calamity as well
> as a personal one, and comes with all the anxieties of a political
> calamity.

There's a loosely connecting sociological theory I read about not long ago. Basically, it goes something like this: we humans are built/accustomed/etc to be living in small societies in which we know absolutely everybody in some meaningful way. In today's age, society is too large and complex for this to be possible, and as a result, we are disconnected from even our own neighbors in a way that is totally unnatural to our history. Celebrities (and I'm sure other things [sports, for instance]) serve as a focal point that we can all connect to, and thusly connect to everybody else. I don't know much of anything about, say, zK over there. But we both know who Tom Cruise is, we both know something about Tom Cruise. And through that shared knowledge, we have some semblance of a connection, however shaky and weak it may be. Being the social creatures we are, we have decided that having the possibility of these shaky connections with everybody (not literally of course, but for all practical purposes) we come across (who doesn't know who Tom Cruise is??????????) is better than the risk of running across people daily whom we have absolutely nothing "in common" with.

To come back to what you said and begin the part of the post where I reveal I'm full of hot air, losing a public figure means that we don't lose a president or a movie star, we lose something that connects us to everybody around us. My cousin or my dad or my (hypothetical) children are a different sort of connection, one that results in rather private expression of mourning. Losing somebody that connects one to *everyone* brings about a more public form of mourning. Because we often place a high value on stability, especially stability in regards to the unknown (i.e. that big huge society we don't "know" in any meaningful way), it frightens us when it is shaken, and we have a much harder time dealing with it.

So, uh...discuss!!

TOM