... Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.How is this different from 21st-century America? How is it the same?
... iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli
uendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim
imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se
continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat,
panem et circenses. ... (Juvenal, Satire 10.77-81)
Thursday, September 20, 2007
COMM 150: Bread, TV and circuses
Complaints about television and the commercialization of the Internet are important as we debate the effects of high technology on mass communication and the ideals of a democratic society. But we also might do well to remember people were lodging similar complaints long before the Internet, TV or the mass media ever came along. Often the complaint is registered in terms of "bread and circuses," a reference to the days when plebs (common people) in Rome were provided with a wheat ration and public entertainment after the Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire. According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, the phrase comes from the satires of the 1st- and 2nd-century poet Juvenal, who complained the Roman people had given up their rights as free citizens. Here's the passage in English and Latin (if you want to show off):
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Today in this era, internet and television are totally taking our attention away from the real facts. Civil rights, wars, and voting are all some what obscure and out of focus alot of the time. They are covered up by britney spears and other nonsense material. Back then is not really that different then today, exept insted of "bread and circuses" we have television and internet.
In today's society as opposed to back then the government is merely providing citizens with entertainment and useless information instead of the important facts such as the truth about the war in Iraq, the american debt, what has george bush been up to, and what about oil why am i paying almost triple what i paid two years ago for gas? As american citizens have a right to know but as long as we are entertained by a circus of drunken movie stars and famous rehab patients there doesnt seem to be an issue
In today's society we are putting all our attention toward entertainment. In which we are provided with irrelevant facts; instead, of information about war in iraq, civil rights, or discriminatin issues. However, the "Bread and circuses" did exist then. Although it was not a great issue.
Post a Comment