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…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, Satire 10.77–81
In Bread & Circuses, we dwell on the following set of related topics: how is it that someone could vote for Obama one cycle, and Trump the next? Why is it that people seem no longer able to distinguish between political fact and fiction? What has happened to our political culture? Is there something happening at the intersection of character and identity formation, and the technology and practice of infotainment? What has happened to the media role of fact checking, heretofore critical to the functioning of our democracy? Are there no more mere facts? Can officials and surrogates gaslight the media and the public with impugnity? Does anybody care?
The Wikipedia entry under Bread & Circuses puts in nicely: “In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the generation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace, as an offered palliative…the phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty…”.
Where Kant writes that the only thing that is good without qualification is a good will, the GMC Sierra 1500 and its marketing department do not agree.
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As a new report warning of the threat of global warming is released, I’m beginning to grow skeptical that Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand is going to save us from climate change-induced mass extinction.
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Dictatorship over needs names a particular sort of modern dystopian impulse that was born out of the French Revolution, and took root in the Bolshevik October Revolution. The Soviet system is gone; but a new version of this dystopia can be seen to be taking root once again.
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A consideration of theories of human needs as a condition for characterizing tech Solutionism as a “dictatorship over needs.
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Before taking a heretical step (to define Silicon Valley by means of concepts that are not its own) it is useful to take a closer look at some aspects of technological hyper capitalism.
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In this first installment of my Tedd Talk, I make the claim that the Silicon Valley Utopia of technological solutionism has definitively “jumped the shark.” By this I mean that it has been publicly and widely exposed as having given birth to a full-fledged dystopia.
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The deceptive southern charm of The Dukes of Hazzard, like the polo and khaki uniform of Charlottesville protesters, masks a sinister white supremacy.
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In the end, the agitator’s solutions are at once morally shocking and also facile, having the characteristics of daydreams.
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Thinking about Huey Long, watching the grainy black and white film, I am convinced that there is this striking kinship between the demagoguery of the Kingfish and that of the Donald.
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What is the secret of the pathological narcissist? We need to fill the hole at the center of this gaslighting and narcissism discussion.
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In this installment of Mourning in America, I now turn to consideration of Trump as a pathological narcissist.
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