Bread and Circuses
Renee Verdier
"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." -- Juvenal, Roman Satirist
Every time I return to my Michigan hometown, I am reminded of the ridiculous. Not The Ridiculous, that which Dali claimed that this world needs more of, but moreso: the ridiculous that Australian comedy shows make manifest, the sad sick reality of suburban America; that of which I am both product and reaction.
I visit my divorcee grandmother in her AARP-certified condo, complete with electric fireplace (real heat!) and laser-lighted personal sauna. Impeccably decorated. Her endearing Southern hospitality is unfortunately paired, as it often is, with the perverted fervor of Baptist assurance. I used to see it as self-assurance, then realized that self-assurance is more or less mutually exclusive with organized religion. Uncertain of one's own destiny, one must place it in the hands of a divine being via the hands of a middleman. Personal responsibility of ultimate ends is eliminated, and personal responsibility of means is simplified by ritual. Go to church every Sunday. Jesus is watching! Look busy! Self-assurance is made impossible when the notion of God as existing within oneself is denied.
She sings hymns to herself for hours each day out of fear that, living alone, her voice will die from lack of use. She paints in a basement that has no windows and never removes her finished products, locking them behind a door to which only she holds a key. The nausea of loneliness keeps her from being able to fall asleep alone in her own bed, propelling her to an easy chair; she skims digests until her eyes tear & wearily close from the strain of reading in the dimly lit wee hours of the morning.
I see rampant suburban development, and it's sinisterly agreeable, as most beige things are; like the lifeless office lackey it seeks to please, yet knows little of real aesthetic pleasure. In modern architecture, as in politics and other forms of marketing, one must appeal to the lowest common denominator. Urban ugliness is real. Overfertilized manicured pedicured lawns multiplied on boulevards are not.
Holden Caulfield is an idiot. If he thought New York was full of "fucking phonies" then clearly he'd never been to the Midwest. New Yorkers may be blunt, but at least their dialogue, if harsh, is directed towards some sort of end. Birds don't warble for shits and giggles. Bees don't fly in futile circles; every movement is carefully planned and intended to relay the distance and direction of pollen to other bees. I'm not an advocate for strict social utilitarianism, but the very least that Midwesterners -- as a subspecies of the oh-so-illustrious homo sapiens -- could do is follow suit in conversational habits. Language exists so that we may communicate our thoughts and ideas to one another. Small talk is thus an abberation of evolution; it is language that lacks content or intent (save the prevalent yet benign devotion to a warped form of politeness), in short -- purposeless. The old sixes and sevens. It is akin to the numbing phenomenon of repeating the word "fork" until it becomes a sound devoid of any recognizable meaning; excess blinds any significant perceptions.
My parents, though supportive of my ambitions (if not my lifestyle), dread my inadvertant jabs at their padded silver platter; they fear me as Springfield fears Lisa Simpson. My father insists that my dissatisfaction with consumerist and materialist lifestyles renders me an inescapably unhappy person, doomed to a life of politically-correct misery; he stoically contends that true happiness is attained by accepting the status quo at face value and milking the system for all it can give you. Make the most of what you've got. If you can't beat 'em, join em. When in Rome, divide and conquer.
I, however, take the Aristotelian view that happiness is a subjective function, an inward power of the soul, and when I turn myself inside out I find I gain immense pleasure by abstaining from the litany of excess and violence of mainstream American culture. But merely complaining about the current state of affairs doesn't bring me joy; everyone knows that all that bitching and moaning can earn is a private performance from the world's smallest violinist. But critically assessing the world, envisioning a new one, and taking action to take those desires for reality -- that is what inspires me. It is what compels me to smile at unfriendly strangers on the subway and make art out of things I find in the dumpster. To each his own, I say, and let them eat cake. But I shalt not suckle from The Man's bloated teats of unqualified authority, no matter how good it tastes when you're hungry. One cannot subsist on bread and circuses alone.
Aldous Huxley writes in Brave New World Revisited that "any bird that has learned how to grub up a good living without being compelled to use its wings will soon renounce the privilege of flight and remain forever grounded. If the bread is supplied regularly and copiously three times a day, many of them will be perfectly content to live by bread alone -- or at least by bread and circuses alone. "In the end," says the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's parable, "in the end they will lay their freedom at your feet and say to us, 'make us your slaves, but feed us.'" Bread is not the opiate of the masses, it is the cyanide. I believe in everything; nothing is sacred. I believe in nothing; everything is sacred. And if opium was the religion of the masses, what a circus it would be.
Yet Huxley remains bemusedly optimistic, as do I. He continues, "When things go badly, and the rations are reduced, the grounded do-dos will clamor again for their wings... The young people who now think so poorly of democracy may grow up to be fighters for freedom. The cry of 'Give me television and hamburgers, but don't bother me with the responsibilites of liberty,' may give place, under altered circumstances to the cry of 'Give me liberty or give me death." Kick them while they're down, sideshow-style. Loafers will be replaced by clown shoes when the freaks have nothing to lose but their chains.
I seem to slip into an alternate persona when I come back to Grand Rapids, returning to the role I filled in high school: the Alpha female, the instigator, the something in the air. It's not that my personality changes drastically according to my location -- I am myself, always -- but it's more that my doppelganger was and is necessitated by the situations I find myself in here, with the fierce face-painted posse I used to command that is now floundering under a lack of direction. Even in my most vulnerable moments they see me as a leader, and I evoke their cries for help; while explaining my neuroses over maintaining and cultivating my being seperate from my relationships with others (a weak point, albeit one that is fortunately fading further into the past) an old friend interrupts.
"Please... write me a how-to manual," she speaks softly, with pleading eyes. "I spend all my time with my boyfriend, but he doesn't spend all his time with me. I can't go to the bar yet. I need something to do while he's at the bar."
Get a hobby, I say. Or a job. Learn an instrument. Read all of these books, I'll write them all down for you. Go on adventures and take pictures of them. Make a blog. Use self-documentation to remind yourself of who you are, and decide if it's who you want to be. Besides, you're never more fabulous then when you're before a camera, at the keyboard, creating your own myths.
I glance at my friend, who is staring at the Tecate mirror behind the Jose Cuervo cactus on the other side of the room. Personifying liquor is marketable, I hear. She nods halfheartedly and I wonder if she even heard me.
The rift between my past and present lives is becoming a canyon; tweaked-out tectonic plates trying to meet each other on the opposite side of the earth. I am reminded of Sebastian, who once said in broken English: "If only I had me no ears, for then I could smile in a circle."
Now I want to create, and I want to create something meaningful. I'm finding myself fiending, but for what? Should it matter, as long as I have this impulse at all? Would defining my objectives too specifically mute my inspiration? And so many people here, there, everywhere, don't seem to fiend at all. They don't even deserve the title of zombies; they have no appetite for brainz. The uninspired have conspired, the few inspired have expired. They are passive consumers of hyperactive media. No grip on the reins but still stuck in the saddle, hurtling onwards at breakneck speed...
Better a starving artist than a fat cat in a top hat. Bread and Circuses, bread and circuses.
Image by n@n@figue, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
- Renee Verdier's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- Tags:
- Americana
- Consumerism
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Propeller
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
Furl
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
Technorati
Icerocket
How inconsiderate of you
If I were your parents, I
If I were your parents, I would toss you out on your judgmental, imperious butt. If your divorcee grandmother is aching with loneliness, why don't you spend time getting to know her, her joys and hopes, rather than mocking her choices in her life? You have zero idea what goes on in the inner lives of the people you see fit to insult. You have no idea what struggles, what pain, what choices they've made to get where they are. Maybe a quiet suburban life is a reward for duties fulfilled that you can't even begin to fathom. Dare to creatively ask yourself how you dehumanize those you see "unfit to be called zombies".
If you really want to be a wacky, creative instigator, rise above the American adolescent angst: be kind to the people around you and stop presuming to judge their lives with such youthful conviction.
agreed thank you
agreed
thank you surlytemple
more power to the angst
group response
surlytemple's analysis of my relationship with my grandmother is at least as presumptuous as he claims i am; lightinmyhands is correct to illuminate the duality that lies within my politic and my project of finding the happy medium between bitter dissatisfaction and apathetic complacency.
in the end, i prefer tough love to blind compassion. i love my grandmother - we've been close from geographically afar my entire life, and when i visit she teaches me how to play the harp - but our familial ties don't exonerate her from the criticisms i levy towards religion or other bothersome forms of socialization; in fact, i think it is humans duty to challenge our loved ones to grow and evolve by engaging them in discourse about our subjective political views.
in some ways, i think this passage about my grandma was completely misinterpreted - i chose to describe her not because i think she's an example of a "bad" human being, but because i see in her the paradoxical characteristics of mainstream exclusionism (mainly via baptist belief) and social alienation, quite a heady cocktail for the suburbanite. on the other hand, i salute lightinmyhands for pointing out that even compassion has limits. can you guess how much compassion my baptist grandmother has for my bisexuality? tolerance is an essential component of a peaceful existence, but does that include tolerating intolerance?
Ah yes, the classic
Ah yes, the classic internet backpeddle with the excuse of "But, but, but....I was misunderstood".
There's a lot of dignity in owning one's own hypocrisy.
No one said the judgmental baptists are right as rain. But neither are you and your dehumanization of other humans. If your grandmother dehumanizes you, are you going to rise above or do the same thing with a different name? Yes, I think you have in fact called her and a whole slew of other people you don't even know the first thing about "unfit to be called zombies". Oh but wait, there's no "namecalling" here. I hope to the holy heavens you wouldn't say that to a real, live mid-westerner in person. I smell the self-righteous sanctimony of the enlightened! If you want to be in an unassailable ethical position, don't make that mistake of criticizing others for the very same things you are doing. You can't wail "These blind idiots won't accept me" when you don't accept them either. Dehumanizing is dehumanizing no matter who it comes from.
hypocrisy, etc.
I find your tone to embody the same odorous self-righteousness and judgemental attitude that you yourself criticize me for. aren't you dehumanizing me by calling me a hypocrite and mocking my projects of clairification?
i never claimed to be enlightened - i am far from enlightenment, and i'm not quite sure if i even believe in it. nor do i think that "unassailable ethical positions" exist and i am not interested in attaining one for my own. if you read my essay "space is the place" on evolver before hastily attacking my character, you'd understand what i mean. i have also never denied being a hypocrite; to quote walt whitman:
Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
this entire essay, for me, is an attempt to understand where the happy medium between tolerance and vigilance lies. a worldview of complete tolerance is paralyzing. i certainly don't condone dehumanization, but i've always thought that dehumanization referred to actions that degrade individuals to the point of depriving them of human qualities, like rape or torture or xenophobia. i don't consider tough love to be dehumanizing; i believe that through discourse we can help one another evolve and realize our best human qualities, whatever they may be. one who refuses to stand up for what they believe and express it to other beings out of fear of hurting their feelings is doomed to a life of apathy and stagnation. we should certainly exercise compassion in our approach; we are all humans and should be treated as such. but in the end, compassion is far more fulfilling when it is active, rather than passive.
as a side note, i actually don't group my grandma into the "zombie" category. i don't care if blind idiots accept me or not, but at the same time i am not unwilling to accept them. more specifically, i am accepting of any and all people, but i am not accepting of their intolerant actions. raised in the bible belt of the midwest, i have several friends who are conservative christians and who i love and accept regardless of our diverging religious and political views. i have maintained friendships even with those who i know don't tolerate or agree with many aspects of my lifestyle. my acceptance ends when that intolerance actively pervades our friendship; one of my most vivid memories from high school involves a former baptist friend throwing eggs at me while i was walking home because i was the vice president of the GSA. have i let this prevent me from establishing connections with others? no.
be careful of the implications of your arguments, because there is a slippery slope between the precipice of tolerance and the abyss of apathy. and there is always hope for zombies to live again.
An excellent essay and a noble point of view my friend!
~illuuminuus~ myspace.com/illuuminus
Critics are a dime a dozen. You have a uniquely couragous and brilliantly literate mind, Renee. Your article made tonight's excursion to RealitySandwich worthwhile. We are indeed surrounded on every side by a tuned out zombie-like mentality. It requires constant vigilance for all of us who seek to be truly present in the now to keep from slipping into this sorry estate. Someone please tell me how keeping our social criticisms to ourselves is polite or helpful? I personally regard those who expend their lives bowing down to convention as lazy, thoughtless, and cowardly. How could it be otherwise? We live in an ill society in desperate need of reform at every level. Walk into a grocery store, and you'll see 80% of the shelf space is filled with blatantly harmful chemical concoctions masquerading as food. The implications of this fact are boggling! We are literally allowing ourselves and our neighbors to be poisoned. I don't mean incidentally poisoned by cheap ingredients and fillers, I mean that our immune and reproductive systems are being intentionally destroyed. Most of us, I believe, are aware of this on one or more levels. Seen anyone making a fuss about it to a store manager lately? Come across any picketers or protesters? Most of us are so mentally and morally divorced from the daily horrors we countenance that we fail to recognize our own ability, let alone responsibility, to do something about it. We leave the farmers alone in their hopeless fight against the corporate monopolies while we focus on our mindless entertainments. We gratify ourselves with the semblance of a kind of morality via our religious notions. We hide our heads in the sand. We are all guilty of this, I'm afraid. We are ALL of us zombies to one degree or another. Well, it's time to wake the fuck up, citizens! Each one of us has a role to play at this unique moment in the remaining history of time.
'The sleeper must awaken!' ~Herbert
Reins
We've still got our hands on the reins.
All bridges can be rebuilt.
Sympathy for the Rebel
My own parents have lived in a way that was brave and adventurous to a point, but at the end of the day in there later years they did kind of cave to the system... please understand that's not a criticism, it's an observation. And if it made them happy, I would be happy for them, too.
The weight of the system is overwhelming and the tools at its disposal become more refined every day. I work within the system as a well paid medical professional. I work as a rehabillitation therapist (occupational) with the elderly, and I know the forces that drive folks into the safe comfortable apartment and the terminal armchair. I know. When I read the part about grandmother sitting alone in her apartment, I do hear the anger, but also I sympathize with it. As Doug Rushkoff points out, one of The System's primary methods of attack is to seperate people, to isolate them. We're all encouraged to stay in our own little silos, follow our professional path, and stay away from those messy people who can't fit into this distorted system.
Maybe lashing out at the victim is not the best approach, but then again, maybe it's a measure of tough love. If could find some way to pull my siblings out of their opiated isolation, I would. I have watched my father go slowly into alzheimer's dementia, and now it is too late. I've lost him, and the last few years were not good. Maybe I should have been tougher?
Thank you
Grandma, we love you!
Obviously for many people one's granny is a delicate and sensitive subject. I remember the Queen Mother here in UK who was lauded as the sweetest little old thing ever, saying of herself...'I am NOT a nice person.' And she was quite the harridan at times...in other words, human!
My grandfather was a very quiet self effacing man very much under the thumb of my grandmother but in the latter stages of his life he developed dementia. The first signs of this was him becoming very disinhibited and doing and saying the stuff which had no doubt been on his mind most of his life. He became very feisty indeed. I remember one day saying of his wife....'She may be a bitch, but I love her!'
I did not see the article as attacking her grandmother, but rather as expressing compassion for someone stuck in and short changed by a sanitising, depersonalising culture and a travesty of Chritianity.
My partner, now here in England with me, comes from the Mid West (Kansas City) and I must admit to finding the people there warm, friendly, magnificently hospitable and generous.
I liked the Walt Whitman quote, a true teacher of mine. In him I see the possibilities of the American (and universally human) spirit, which bursts through the veneer of consumerism, which refuses to be bound, cannot be constrained His is a radical individualism which paradoxically embraces all.
For all its apparent power the 'system' is as insubstantial as air, only as powerful as the assent we give to it. Sure the risks of refusal may be great, but likewise the potential rewards.Not just in a self interested way but in freeing us up to help others, to envision and contribute to a more just world, to awaken the spirit which lies just beneath the surface, to further the 'Kindom'!
More precious than all worldly riches is Freedom—freedom from the painful constipation and poor narrowness of ecclesiasticism—freedom in manners, habiliments, furniture, from the silliness and tyranny of local fashions—entire freedom from party rings and mere conventions in Politics—and better than all, a general freedom of One’s-Self from the tyrannic domination of vices, habits, appetites, under which nearly every man of us, (often the greatest brawler for freedom,) is enslaved.
(Walt Whitman)
.
The author attacked and
The author attacked and insulted an entire geographic population of the United States and still insists that they are "blind idiots", grandmother now excepted. So it's OK to be attacking those in the "out group" but questioning the in-club is somehow meeeeeean. Got it. OK. I see how things roll around here. I'll remember that rule. Only make criticisms of those who are not in the club. Making a mental note of that for next time.
Anyone else want the last word? I don't need it.
i don't want the last word cause i don't want words to end.
oh, shut up!
"God sends meat, the devil sends cooks."
lessen you're idealism and you lessen you're happiness
Renee, some of what you said I find very on-target, it's refreshing to hear, and gives me hope for finding more mediocrity-destroying resonance with others. The defensive reactions generated are understandable... I just finished watching "Born on the 4th of July" for the 1st time tonight, synchronistically relevant to the common reactions of those who have assimilated to a very sick system (not because they're dumb or a "zombie" necessarily, but more because the way out has been so thoroughly obscured, few have the time, resources or luck to catch a glimpse of it) and then when someone criticizes that assimilation they react defensively because no one likes to hear "you've been a puppet of the devil for many years", especially when their intentions have been mostly good: looking for love, enjoyment and prosperity while causing as little harm as necessary, as most humans do. The real root problem is now as it has always been: deception. When we don't know what's really right or wrong systemically, (most know what is inter-personally, most aren't pathological liars, thieves or murderers, hence "the devil" mostly does his work systemically), when we don't have the knowledge of good and evil, we are expelled from Paradise/Divinity/Nature, and left in the gray area of a godless wasteland (i.e. suburbia as you described it for example).
As you said: "Uncertain of one's own destiny, one must place it in the hands of a divine being via the hands of a middleman." That's a crucial point; when we allow ourselves to be disempowered, physically (shit food, fluoridated/chlorinated water, toxic vaccines, mercury fillings, pharmaceuticals, etc.), mentally (false and meaningless education, info-tainment "news", TV and movies that subliminally and directly influence us to assimilate, etc.), and spiritually (religion that denies a true path to Self-realization through worship of exterior/non-existent gods, etc.) then we forfeit our chance at a truly fulfilling and wonderful life.
But when we were born we were given no Ultimate Truth booklet, or How To Be Happy manual, no, we are left in ignorance, within a Mystery of seemingly infinite complexity. This is not a stable position, it naturally causes anxiety, which authority/institutions (and corporations w/ their many products) are their to appease, and many seeking some peace of mind, take what is offered, as low-quality as it is. Like you said of your father, "he stoically contends that true happiness is attained by accepting the status-quo at face value and milking the system for all it can give you." Unfortunately all it can give us is basically dissatisfaction, due I believe, to the negative karmic consequence of participating in violent and destructive actions and systems. Which resonates with something else excellent you said: "when I turn myself inside out I find I gain immense pleasure by abstaining from the litany of excess and violence of mainstream American culture". Like the last scene in Born on the 4th July, the victim of the system finds joy in rebelling against it. I think this is part of the true way out, a joyful rebellion against deception, injustice and unnecessary violence in all their forms. Which is a beginning of an answer to this: "Now I want to create, and I want to create something meaningful. I'm finding myself fiending, but for what?"
For that I believe we need to try and follow some logic and reasoning. What is meaningful? Love? Certainly a contender for the #1 spot on the meaningful list right? So what is Love in Action? Well, practically speaking, it should be action that decreases suffering and increases happiness right? So what are things we can do that will contribute to that? Be nice to friends, family and strangers, for sure. But this world needs much more than that. Most people have always been nice. The worst problems are systemic, so therefore the loving action necessitates action against the system. We need to boycott products and services that destroy, oppress and harm. So does that mean no more petroleum-fueled cars, no more coal-powered TV sets, no more taxes to the military-industrial complex, no more profits to the central banks, no more animal products? Those expecting to be let off the hook here, as many "spiritual" pundits do, I'm sorry to disappoint, it does mean all those changes, plus a few more.
To keep this comment from becoming too long I'll go straight to my current best answer to your last question, which I have been continually asking myself in recent years: meditate, follow something like The Noble Eightfold Path, live sustainably, live nonviolently, boycott Babylon. The process of elimination has led me to veganic eco-villages as being a way of cutting the strings the devil had tied to me... and I think the science and facts back that up as good idea for humanity as whole. We need to "strike at the root of evil" as Thoreau said, to be truly revolutionary, which I think is half the answer to our dissatisfaction and unhappiness. The other half? Self-realization sounds worth investigating. Loving resonance with someone (or more that one) that is so strong that the vibrations create a sound so sweet and a feeling so ecstatic that you can trod through the valley of death with a smile on your face, definitely seems worth pursuing as well. I'm still seeking that perfect Love & Revolution combination, and I like to think it's possible (a motivation to keep trying and living), so like you and Huxley, I strangely remain optimistic, and somewhat contented feeling another truth you shared: "Better a starving artist than a fat cat in a top hat."