Dear Sinéad,

Let me begin with a compliment. Your letter to Miley Cyrus the other day was spot on in its articulation of the corporate music machine dynamic and the way it uses people, especially, pretty women, to its own amoral ends. Your employ of words like “prostitute” and “pimp” was as accurate and appropriate as it was provocative.

Cyrus’s childish response (here, pick your own link) couldn’t possibly have come as a surprise to you. The only thing that’s harder to reach than a kid is a kid with status. Kids know everything. Kids with status have proof that they know everything. They’re fluffed and preened and validated every waking moment. She has money. She has fame. Everyone is talking about her. That means that anyone who questions her in any way is wrong. Or dumb. Or hating. Or something.

You had to know you were tilting at a windmill. Which is cool. I’ve tilted at my share of windmills, too. Who am I kidding? I was young and stupid once – I’ve been the windmill.

And we all know the “open letter to a famous person” conceit for what it is. In many cases, if not most, it isn’t really a letter to the named recipient, it’s a letter to everyone else about the recipient because we understand that it isn’t likely to reach the intended, or if it is, it isn’t likely to be afforded much consideration. I wrote an open letter to President Obama some time back and posted it here on S&R. I have no access to him and even if I had no way was he going to take my advice, so it wasn’t really a letter to him at all, was it?

All of which is to say that you don’t write open letters if the goal is really to say what you want to say to the person. Which means that while Cyrus knows who you are and has said she respects you, you knew full well that what you had to say wasn’t going to find a receptive audience with her. If you thought that, you’d have had your agent ring her agent, etc.

Still, we’re fine up to this point. You said what needed saying and you couldn’t possibly have been surprised by her reaction. I know I wasn’t. It was just about exactly what I expected, if perhaps a tad trailer-trashier in spirit.

But then the confusing bit happens. Your response to her response wasn’t at all what I expected. Since your actual intended audience was a) the general public, which you wanted to educate a bit about how the system uses women, and b) young girls, whom you hoped to inoculate against the exploitative nature of popular media, in hopes that they might henceforth treat themselves with more respect, my assumption was that you already had your follow-up written and waiting for Cyrus’s all-too-predictable tantrum.

Instead, you reacted with anger, undercutting the credibility of your own message. What you have to say is still spot on, but the how is a problem. Instead of coming off like the wise elder who has been there and genuinely cares, you reacted as if you expected to be respected, as if you were entitled to be heeded. Listen, I’m with you here. I’ve been dissed by more ignorant fuckwits than I can readily remember, and I know how pissed off you had to be. Seriously, I’m 100% with you on this. But the world is what the world is, and the fact that you have legitimately earned a measure of respect doesn’t mean you’ll get it, especially from the less intelligent and enlightened, and insisting on it is only going to open you up to more mockery.

The tone of your response now allows the popular press to frame this as a templated Hollywood beef. You might as well be two smack-talking rappers at this point. For instance:

Sinead / Miley Feud Escalates, Irish Singer Calls In Lawyers, Says: I’ll Visit You In Psych Ward

Wow. This cannot be where you wanted to go. You forfeited the high ground, and in doing so knee-capped the credibility you need to make your message stick with all those other young women who were your real audience. Instead of a seasoned elder teeming with insight, you’re now some has-been caught up in a girl fight with the queen of twerk.

The PR/image management term here is “optics,” and right now you don’t look good. Mercifully, some of the celeb rags have had the good sense to call Cyrus out on the mental health thing, which helps you a little.

Instead of rage, your tone should have been one of vague sadness, of weariness. It should have said that you still loved Miley and lashing out was the furthest thing from your mind. You should have let her very publicly be a child while you were very publicly the adult.

Again, I understand your rage. I have reacted as ineffectively myself, so this isn’t me talking down to you so much as it is me saying I wish you hadn’t done what I have been known to do. Still, we live and learn. Even at our age – I’m a bit older than you – there’s still much to learn and the gods know I get it wrong every day.

As for young Cyrus, your rant is probably right. She isn’t the first young person to taste massive fame and if she winds up in rehab, or worse, well, she won’t be the first down that road, either. I know we both hope that doesn’t happen, of course. At times she shows sparks of genuine intelligence and we have seen instances that when it comes to certain important social issues of the day her heart and mind are in the right place. She’s not a bad kid. She’s just a kid who’s in over her head, and that’s hardly her fault.

So we perhaps expect the worst but hope for the best, don’t we?

I hope you’ve learned from the experience of the past couple of days. You’re a remarkable talent and there isn’t a young female (or male) artist out there who can’t benefit from your legacy. You have a great deal to give, and here’s hoping that others are more graceful than Cyrus when they encounter your wisdom.