Bread and Circuses

The Roman Colosseum

In High School, I learned about a phenomenon that occured in Ancient Rome (Remember them? Collapsed civilization? Burned? Guy with a fiddle?).  The idea of "bread and circuses" has been on my mind a lot the last few years.  I don't know if it is because I am getting older, or more aware, or that there is just so much dreck out there I can't avoid it... I question if we are experiencing the same issues?

The Romans had a practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power through populism.  In effect, buying their vote.  Pay attention to the "Americans for Prosperity" campaigns; the corp sponsored political movement with paid pseudo-celebrities, i.e. Joe, The Plumber, who get paid to travel and speak to groups of people in order to sway votes and public opinion.

According to wikipedia:  "In the case of politics, the phrase ("bread and circuses") is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace. The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty amongst the concerns of the common man."

There are days that I look at the hundreds of TV channels and programming available and wonder if we (as a race) are concerned with the things that really matter.  The internet is a "superhighway of information" and yet it is filled with so much flotsam and jetsam that it becomes close to impossible to weed out the nuggets that are meant to inform, educate, and lift us to a place of enlightenment.

I am not a conspiracy theorist in any way shape or form.  I do not believe that characters like "Snookie" are government created distractions that keep the common man from thinking.  But even if the "Housewives of Wherever" aren't a tool created by some monsterous government agency, isn't the effect the same?  A populace more concerned with drug-induced ramblings of celebrity than what laws are passing?  Citizens more entranced by the drunken escapades of a pop-star, than the actions taken on foreign soil in "their name"?  Sports figures are more revered than the leaders of any specific country or religion?

Politics has been a polarizing force recently.  At least for those paying attention to it has been polarizing.  The LOUD people on the Right and the LOUD people on the Left all have an opinion.  But that HUGE gap in the middle....the ones busy watching reruns of Springer, "The Jersey Shore", and "Housewives of Wherever"... when that group wakes up from the bread and circuses, where will they stand on issues of Abortion, Gay Marriage, the Deficit, and Industry regulation?

This will be interesting.  Anyone have a fiddle?