When communities are small there is hardly room for fame because everyone knows everyone else anyway. And as communities grow from valley to valley or place to place names may be well known of people who are special in some way or of use, but the kind of fame we accept as fame today would have no place.
Today faces become internationally known, and whilst I think there is an absurdity in that alone, it isn’t something to be worried about and in many respects might be thought of as a quirk of humanity that is more-or-less harmless. Except that in the days when someone was famous in the local community because they had a way with animals, to a high rate of healthy births, have given way to a worship of images, a lust for images and a belief in the special nature of the famous.
Why else do we think that a famous name on a petition will garner more recognition of the aims of the petition than the subject matter? Why else do we think a famous person going to a famine or earthquake hit region garners more news time than the dying? Why is it that we think the famous are worth listening to when intellect has never been a reason for becoming famous?
We treat fame in a wholly unreasoning way that proves our immaturity as a species.