What are today's "bread and circuses" [Explanation within]?
Asked by
jfos (
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March 16th, 2010
There is a latin phrase, panem et circenses , that means “bread and circuses.” The applied meaning of this phrase is that politicians and leaders of the past kept the masses occupied by bread and circuses. Not literally, but of course by food and entertainment. By doing so, those in charge are able to get away with more, since the populace is content.
What do you think are today’s bread and circuses?
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16 Answers
Television & junkfood. —most of the US populace is perfectly happy as long as they can eat their mcdonald’s and watch their reality shows.
The internet by far is it. What a perfect way for the Government to keep tabs on what we say think and do! Big brother never had it this good!
Health care, Social Security, “Congressional investigations” into everything and anything (that’s a circus, to be sure).
Professional Sports and Summer Blockbuster Movies.
Anything that occupies the thought process of the masses and keeps them from applying critical thinking to the issues. One could even include politics in that as politicians seem to be adept at deflecting our attention from the actual issues and sidetracking us with who slept with whom, nailing interns, sexting, etc.
Pretty much how it has always worked.
Kiss the baby, steal their lollipop.
Smartphones, texting, picture messaging, mobile internet.
Celebrities and the ‘news’
Tabloid newspapers which print utter rubbish to titilate their buyers. Keeps the people amused and minds off anything requiring serious thought.
So-called health care reform. Plenty of pork barrel for the vested interests, just barely enough reform to get them re-elected. No universal single payer system to wound anyones cash-cow, no genuine tort reform that would hurt the lawyers wallets. Only enough to silence some of the critics and postpone real reform for another generation. The big pharmas, HMOs and tort lawyers can feed at the trough for another 20 years or so.
Football, Boxing and Ice Hockey (and beer and franks.) Bread and Circuses implies entertaining and draining off the aggression of the masses.
There’s also the real thing, known as war.
@gailcalled Are you arguing that war is merely a device to distract the populace?
It’s the primary way that men (usually) have directed their aggressive instincts outward.
You’re not a kinsfolk or a dweller in my cave? Pow, right in the kisser with a wooly mammoth femur.
In my Jewish culture, we actually call it “Mot,” pronounced “mote.” It stands for “member of the tribe.”
Sugar and Pharmaceuticals
The pair make a lovely Catch 22
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