Key Takeaways
You ’ve just cajoled the last lo mein noodle out of a takeout food container and narrowly avoided fret on it , thanks to the dangerously hilarious comedy special you ’re watch over . Then , just as soon as you ’ve start to retrieve , thatfriend startstexting– railing against the inadequacy and inequities of local political science . Instead of replying , though , you put your phone on vibrate and turn back to the entertainment at hand . It ’s just too unmanageable to get upset when your abdomen is full and your nous is distracted .
The melodic theme that people can be pacified by intellectual nourishment and entertainment when they should be rallying to their decreed civic duties is n’t a raw one . In fact , the concept was first described in ancient times by the satiric Romanic poet Juvenal , who write the Latin termpanem et circenses , which means " bread and circuses . "
" Two things only the multitude anxiously desire – moolah and circuses , " he wrote , lamenting the nonstarter of citizen to take action as the democratic Roman Republic fell and the heavy - handedRoman Empirebegan .
Within a mere 100 years , Rome undergo massive governmental changes . What in 133 B.C.E. was a free republic that rely on a voting populace and an assembly organization morphed into an embittered autarchy by the first 100 C.E. [ source : Beard ] .
Thus , Juvenal ’s terminal figure , " bread and circus " went viral , used by scores of the great unwashed – then and now – to discover mass who voluntarily trade their popular freedom in exchange for unchanging - yet - controlling government activity .
Back then , the papist government kept the Roman hoi polloi mollify by offering them gratuitous food and rouse amusement in the Roman Colosseum . Now , " dinero and circus " apply to any civil or governmental entity – or any situation , really – in which the masses volitionally accept short - terminal figure solutions to comfort their discontent .
The " bread and genus Circus " concept is also a meet descriptor forDominant Ideology . Dominant Ideology is a Marxist construct exemplify by the thought that economically disadvantaged classes will accept that it ’s their fate to stay on so [ root : Purdue ] .
It ’s possible that the lesson of the chronicle is one of independence – in thought , action and political economy . And specially when it come to the Roman Colosseum .
