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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…”.
This post is ultimately about the new American populism as seen through the prism of “the view from nowhere.” The four views from nowhere described together cast light upon the radical discontinuities presently found within our culture.
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Gaslighting is weaponized bullshit. Where the bullshitter seeks to impress, the gaslighter seeks rather to destroy.
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Our urgent need is to understand ‘the gaslighting effect’ itself, because all attempts to deal with it thus far have been an abysmal failure.
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