Because celebrities, it can be argued, serve at our pleasure. We’re the ones who make them. Who break them. Who can lift them up again.

Yet many celebrities remove themselves from grace by their own actions — shoplifting, drug abuse, domestic violence, endless court appearances, bad behavior of one kind or another.

But, noblesse oblige, we can restore the celebrity to glory under a time-proven cultural ritual of rehabilitation. In the case of Lance Armstrong, the ritual of rehabilitation is tested to its limit. He misbehaved so profoundly. He lied so often. He corrupted teammates and a sport. He fell so swiftly and so far that his might be the limiting case, proof that there are some falls from which people just don’t come back.