A meme to guage a society
It's kind of surreal (at the very least, it makes me uncomfortable) to see this kind of thing receive a voice of advocacy on an international source of news and opinion like Forbes.
It's been said before by people a lot smarter than me that the USA is closely mirroring the Roman and Greek (and many other) empries in its development, adolesence and perhaps decrepecy and death.
In some ways this is more apparent than others. For example, in both ancient Rome and Greek cultures, the struggle between moralist pagan cults and cults centered specifically around decadence and self-glorification, homosexuality and general immorality were in constant political contention. Particularly in Rome, the weakness and inability and unwillingness of Rome to stand up to her enemies can be directly compared to the heights to which her culture's decadence climbed and depths to which her morality fell. Ultimately this fragility lead to Rome being sacked by a bunch of wussy Germans.
I believe this draw towards violent entertainment could be a meme that seems to be a social constant, a barometer for guaging any culture's health by guaging their respect for life and ability to not be blood thirsty animals looking anywhere - even at murder - for entertainment.
The point I'm trying to make is that at one point in time in Rome, gladatorial combat was very much an issue that was being discusses in the pulic discourse. There were people on both sides of the issue. But then it became acceptable. And then it became indispensible. If you cater to and breed a mindset in a society of people that life is so bad that you should go watch other people kill each other, you're creating myriad problems that aren't easily solved. During the most successful time of the Roman Empire, gladiatorial combat was supressed and eliminated. The opposite was true for much of the wrong-headed rule of the emperors. Cause and effect are often difficult to sort out in history, but correlations can still be easily observed in hindsight, and avoided in the execution of our own public social policy.
And of course I could just be wrong; perhaps there's nothing wrong with millions of Americans entertaining themselves by watching men (and womyn, afterall any government-regulated entity should be non-discriminatory) kill each other with weapons.
It's been said before by people a lot smarter than me that the USA is closely mirroring the Roman and Greek (and many other) empries in its development, adolesence and perhaps decrepecy and death.
In some ways this is more apparent than others. For example, in both ancient Rome and Greek cultures, the struggle between moralist pagan cults and cults centered specifically around decadence and self-glorification, homosexuality and general immorality were in constant political contention. Particularly in Rome, the weakness and inability and unwillingness of Rome to stand up to her enemies can be directly compared to the heights to which her culture's decadence climbed and depths to which her morality fell. Ultimately this fragility lead to Rome being sacked by a bunch of wussy Germans.
I believe this draw towards violent entertainment could be a meme that seems to be a social constant, a barometer for guaging any culture's health by guaging their respect for life and ability to not be blood thirsty animals looking anywhere - even at murder - for entertainment.
The point I'm trying to make is that at one point in time in Rome, gladatorial combat was very much an issue that was being discusses in the pulic discourse. There were people on both sides of the issue. But then it became acceptable. And then it became indispensible. If you cater to and breed a mindset in a society of people that life is so bad that you should go watch other people kill each other, you're creating myriad problems that aren't easily solved. During the most successful time of the Roman Empire, gladiatorial combat was supressed and eliminated. The opposite was true for much of the wrong-headed rule of the emperors. Cause and effect are often difficult to sort out in history, but correlations can still be easily observed in hindsight, and avoided in the execution of our own public social policy.
And of course I could just be wrong; perhaps there's nothing wrong with millions of Americans entertaining themselves by watching men (and womyn, afterall any government-regulated entity should be non-discriminatory) kill each other with weapons.
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