Panem et circenses versus entertainment

Three days ago marked a big day for Denver and Seattle – the Broncos and the Seahawks will be the two teams to compete in the Super Bowl. While in Olympia listening to speeches on the importance of lobbying and how to, people watching the Seahawks game in the hotel lobby would cheer whenever the Hawks scored (and I also guess when they played a good defense…?). At one point, the hollering was so distracting that we assumed (and rightly so) that our team won. When I went on Facebook following the victory, my newsfeed was filled with a flurry of Seahawks (and Denver) victory posts.

However, not everybody in Washington or Colorado celebrated the wins. I noticed how some people compared the games to “distractions” or “panem et circenses.”

Some people may recognize the “panem” part from The Hunger Games – the country in which the story takes place. What does it mean? Bread. If you have read Mockingjay, you may already be familiar with this.

Let us translate panem et circenses. We already know that panem means bread. “Et” in Latin is “and.” “Circenses” stands for “circuses.” Bread and circuses. This phrase came from Juvenal, a Roman poet and satirist, in his work Satire X.

"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."

(I got this translation from Wikipedia. As with every translation, different versions abound, but this was the best I could find on the internet.)

These three words would not mean much unless one knows the meaning behind them. Panem et circenses is a superficial way of creating approval for public figures or policy. It is a means of distraction from the duties and concerns of the civilians.

Scenario: I am running for my school’s student government. However, my opponent knows more about the position and seems to be ahead of me, according to the polls. In order to increase my popularity, I throw on a big house party the weekend before voting begins. During election week, a researcher gathers some voters for interviews. She finds that the six out of ten people she interviewed that voted for me attended my party. Here were some standout quotes: “I don’t really know any of the candidates, so I voted for her because she was the only one I’ve met;” “My friend invited me to the party, and this friend of mine told me that I should vote for Katrina because she is more reliable than her opponent;” “Katrina seemed cool, so I decided to vote for her;” “She was kind enough to hold a party that was open for anyone to attend. We need more leaders like her who will be there for the people.”

Not that I would ever do that if I run for office.

*cough*

Panem et circenses feeds on:

1.       Ignorance of the issues at hand

2.       Unwillingness to look into details

3.       Feeling content with the first impressions of a given solution

What does this have to do with football or the Super Bowl?

If I am to guess correctly, those who claim that sports are panem et circenses are referring to its ability to draw people into the TV or arena (if you are lucky enough to get tickets) and get the spectators drawn in to every detail, especially as their team makes it further into the season.

Does this necessarily make it panem et circenses?

Simply, in my opinion, no.

I think this way because I tend to feel that sports are entertainment. Panem et circenses must contain entertainment in order to be so, but that doesn’t necessarily mean all entertainment is panem et circenses. (Think of how all rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles.)

The more well-off a society becomes, the more time and resources the people can devote to entertainment and competition for fun.

The NFL was founded on August 20, 1920 (although it has roots from decades before).

Here are some tidbits of information that share some qualities of being symptoms of panem et circenses:

1.       While the NFL is not exactly a government entity, it is government-subsidized, which, of course, I am not a fan of. Nevertheless, it does not make it an anomaly seeing as how a lot of organizations depend the government for money.

It just makes sense afterall.

2.       Even though the NFL was not destroyed or abandoned during the Great Depression, it still did suffer a bit, but it fared better than other economic areas. Just as you hear people went to the movie theaters in droves to “escape the real world,” they must have done the same with sports. It reminds me of the concept of clowns. If a performer was to get injured or killed during a show, the circus “sends out the clowns” to distract the audience. There is a difference between forgetting your pain momentarily and being distracted to the point of completely disregarding a tragic event.

3.       During World War II, the games went on, despite the conflict. Some teams had to disband for the time being, and pretty much the rest desperately looked for players to sign (or re-sign) on. Because I am not an historian, I cannot tell you how this period of time affected those in the NFL or spectators or why it was not “important” enough to abandon during the war years.

My final points for why football is not panem et circenses have to deal with its relations with policymakers and endurance as an American tradition.

Because I am a libertarian and a drug legalization advocate, I had liked pages on Facebook and friends who are for marijuana legalization (at the very least) and are very happy that the two states that got into the Super Bowl are the ones who voted to legalize recreational marijuana in 2012 (and have just now started opening and giving out licenses to the corresponding businesses). Seeing as how this outcome from the games has sparked such conversations about drug policy shows that it is not complete distraction from society’s problems. Not to mention that you will not find many politicians who would openly endorse the legalization of recreational marijuana. I mean of course if you are against drugs being legalized, you could have seen the Seahawks and Broncos victories and the resulting weed jokes/discussions to be a kind of panem et circenses – “football causes societal disruption and makes people want to forget important matters and talk about and smoke the pot!”

Sure, there are a lot of crazy, obsessed football fans out there, but there are also areas of study, hobbies, and other forms of entertainment that draw in dedicated followers, if not sometimes bringing about unhealthy obsession bordering on the lines of worship. There can never be a “collective agreement” on what matters in the world – answers will vary and a lot of people will disagree with each other. Just as a politician can dismiss a sports fan for focusing their interests on the wrong topic, an environmentalist and a pro-peace activist can disagree on which matter is most important. For the most part, I would think that an average football fan has a general understanding of world matters…or at least on par with the general American (which is another story in itself). Even if football did not exist, because of the influence of mainstream media and other things, the fans who are already not aware of important happenings would have other interests that would keep them from keeping up with important matters.

Every fall, football season begins. It has become such a norm in American culture that you could almost totally ignore it if you wanted to. The Olympics, on the other hand, happen every four years (well, every two because of summer and winter). I guess an easier argument could be made that the Olympics are panem et circenses, unless you sincerely believe that it does help to encourage friendly competition and comradeship.

By writing about this, I have come to feel that comparing American football to panem et circenses downplays the more serious displays of it, such as the gladiator fights or the gruesome spectacle that Roman theater had become. The same could be said of a school newspaper satirizing the clothes of a female student campus and saying it is “sexual harassment” because as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) beautifully stated : it "trivialized the real offense of sexual harassment." This can also go for calling the United States a “police state” because of several bad police role models and a few corrupt divisions, despite being told from people in other countries that our police force does its job pretty well (although it could do better). This does not mean that we should ignore the potential of entertainment completely distracting us from important matters in the future via a downwards slope. However, please save terms of substance for true investigations of its legitimate meaning.

My commentary on Alternet's/Salon's "Why I fled libertarianism - and became a liberal"

I have recently read a Salon article that made a jab at libertarianism. A while ago, I did commentary on "11 questions to see if libertarians are hypocrites," and now I will do the same thing with "Why I fled libertarianism - and became a liberal."

I saw several Facebook pages and some of my online friends share this article. When I finally got around to reading it (took me a while to find it again on my news feed...and I had forgotten every page and every friend that had posted it), it turns out it was not as anti-libertarian and pro-Obama as a bunch of people were making it out to be.

Let's take a look at it...

The author of this article was a follower (hinting to be a delegate) of Ron Paul. He had to say this about the delegates:

Many members of the group were obsessed with the gold standard, the Kennedy assassination and the Fed. Although Libertarians believe government is incompetent, many of them subscribe to the most fringe conspiracy theories imaginable. Airplanes are poisoning America with chemicals (chemtrails) or the moon landings were faked. Nothing was too far out. A great many of them really think that 9-11 was an inside job. Even while basking in the electoral mainstream, the movement was overflowing with obvious hokum.

I think most libertarians can relate to this...especially online.

“Dress normal,” she [the Ron Paul staffer] said. “Wear suits, and don’t bring signs or flags. Don’t talk about conspiracy theories. Just fit in.” Her advice was the kind you might hear given to an insane uncle at Thanksgiving.

Thanks to this I realized that if I am going to get more involved with the Libertarian Party (or just libertarians in general), then I just might have to act like a parent of a bunch of socially-inept kids.

“Bring in the clowns,” she said, and smiled before I lost her in the mass of people.

I will never forget that moment: Bring in the clowns. At the time, I considered myself a thoughtful person, yet I could hardly claim to be one if you judged me by the company I kept. The young lady knew something I had not yet learned: most of our supporters were totally fucking nuts.

I am hoping by the time I am placed in a big leadership role amongst my fellow Libertarians that they, the nuts, will have (mostly) ceased to exist.

I came by my own libertarian sensibilities honestly. I grew up in a mining town that produced gold, silver and copper; but above all, Battle Mountain, Nev. made libertarians. Raised on 40-acre square of brown sage brush and dead earth, we burned our own garbage and fired guns in the back yard.

Like every libertarian ever.

I learned that libertarians are made for lots of reasons, like reading the bad fiction of Ayn Rand...

I will admit - I lol'd at this part.

In my experience, most seemed to be poor, white and undereducated.

Of course he admits that this is in his own experience, but this article says that libertarians are better-educated, younger, and wealthier than the average person. In my experience, most libertarians I have known are well-educated, either early-to-mid twenties or over fifty, and a mix of male/female and ethnicities (it is hard to say because there is not a label on everyone's forehead telling of their political ideology, but it does seem that most libertarians are white).

If you think that selfishness and cruelty are fantastic personal traits, you might be a libertarian. In the movement no one will ever call you an asshole, but rather, say you believe in radical individualism.

Maybe there can be a case made for how and why selfishness can be made so that it helps out the rest of society, but I am not so sure about cruelty. I really do not like how he makes absolutes - "in the movement no one will ever call you an asshole"- bite my ass. Whether or not it is the popular opinion of other libertarians or not, I will call them out if their views show them off to be a jerk or just plain naive.

[Libertarians] are generally supportive of the gay community, completely behind marijuana legalization and are often against ill-considered foreign wars...

I have seen a lot of nonlibertarians comment on how libertarians are great vocal supporters over issues like these. If only they stuck to rational topics like these and stayed away from chemtrails...

Their saving grace is a complete lack of organizational ability, which is why they are always trying to take over the Republican Party, rather than create a party of their own.

Uhh...Libertarian Party?? Although, that is not saying much, to be completely honest. People who have worked for the Libertarian Party have told me some things on how they lack good structure. I say just give it time - not to mention good leadership. I will get to this later, but I feel that it is a good idea for libertarians to infiltrate the Republicans, as well as the Democrats. 

The Ron Paul delegates were able to take over the Nevada convention in 2008, howling, screeching and grinding it to a painful halt. I was part of the mob, and once we took over, we were unable to get anything done.

This is why you need to think plans through. 

Don't be a Zuko.

Or a Sokka...

Libertarians were (rightly) furious when our government bailed out the banks, but they fought hardest against help for ordinary Americans. They hated unemployment insurance and reduced school lunches. I used to say similar things, but in such a catastrophic recession isn’t the government supposed to help? Isn’t that the lesson of the Great Depression?

You would think that a former libertarian would have doubts on whether or not the government actually helped lift the country up from that. I do agree with the author that libertarians fighting hard (and especially -er) against unemployment insurance and reduced school lunches is a bit ridiculous, especially when they could be focusing their energy on the bigger problem - corporate welfare.

Although I didn’t vote for him, I wept when Barack Obama took the oath of office in early 2009. They were tears of bewilderment, joy, pride and hope, despite the fact that I did everything within my own limited power to keep the moment from ever happening.

Um. Okay.

The Tea Party monster forever tainted the words freedom and libertarian for me. The rise of the Tea Party made me want to puke, and my nausea is now a chronic condition. There are a lot of libertarians in the Tea Party, but there are also a lot of repugnant, religious nuts and intolerant racists. “Birthers” found a comfy home among 9-11 conspiracy people and other crackpots. After only a few months, I had absolutely no desire to ever be linked to this group of people.

This was the last straw for him. Ya know, only about 20% of Tea Partiers consider themselves libertarian, or at least according to the article I referenced earlier. I have no idea how this could get someone to turn into a liberal. I think it is good that libertarians work with other groups to spread their ideas. However, I understand disgust at the kind of people he describes in the Tea Party, whether or not he is exaggerating their behavior and/or the amount of people actually like this.

I began to think about real people, like my neighbors and people less lucky than me. Did I want those people to starve to death? I care about children, even poor ones. I love the National Park system. The best parts of the America I love are our communities. My libertarian friends might call me a fucking commie (they have) or a pussy, but extreme selfishness is just so isolating and cruel. Libertarianism is unnatural, and the size of the federal government is almost irrelevant. The real question is: what does society need and how do we pay for it?

This reminds me of someone I knew who decided he was not libertarians anymore. When he told me why...it reminded me of the views I had. Just because you are not 100% libertarian does not mean you are not libertarian at all. I also love the National Park system, although I do believe there might be more viable options in maintaining them. Ya know, not all libertarians advocate for "extreme selfishness" and I bet a lot of us also think it is "isolating and cruel." So you think libertarianism is unnatural? Please share your infinite knowledge of human behavior and society with me. I would also just love to know how the size of the federal government is almost irrelevant. Like how the federal government makes it so that the drinking age is twenty-one across the board, and if any state were to change that, then goodbye to their highways! - definitely irrelevant. Starve to death? Exaggeration much?

I don’t think regular Americans have any idea just how crazy libertarians can be. The only human corollary I can offer is unquestioning religious fervor, and hell yeah, I used to be a true believer. Libertarians think they own the word “freedom,” but it’s a word that often obfuscates more than enlightens. If you believe the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free,”  then libertarians live in a prison of their own ideology.

I think that first sentence should be, "I don't think regular Americans have any idea just how logical libertarians can be." If I am not mistaken, I am pretty sure that libertarians are already stereotyped to be "evil," "racist," "crazy," "conspiracy theorists," etc. Sure, I think many of the ideas libertarians have are naive, such as the free market can cure everything, but truly listen to a rational libertarian, and you might have to question your beliefs...or refuse to acknowledge any truth in what they say and start calling them names (which is how I believe some stereotypes such as "racist" and "hate the poor" came to be).

I will have to admit, though, that I do agree, to an extent, with the last two sentences of that paragraph.

While going through my Facebook newsfeed trying to find this article again like I mentioned earlier, I found this counter-attack (first).

My favorite line is: "And if you're in the libertarian movement, someone will call you an asshole at some point. Or they will call you a statist."

So much truth.

This author delivers a lethal (yet wonderful) blow:

"I'm going to give our friend the benefit of the doubt and say, sure, okay, you met three libertarians who were most passionately opposed to school lunches. that was their number one issue, closely followed by the horrors of unemployment insurance. But there are a lot of libertarians who would prefer to tackle the bigger issues first: war, prisons, police, the drug war, financial ruin for the country, occupational licensing, zoning laws, lack of school choice, the death penalty, transportation, whatever you like. And you would know that if you spoke to more than three libertarians - that no, most of them wouldn't start cutting the lunches for shoeless Appalachian children program. They'd probably start with trimming the military, the Department of Homeland Security, or that sentimental favorite, the Drug Enforcement Administration."

People have to realize that yes, the majority of libertarians prefer a privatized education system, abolishment of the minimum wage, etc., but that there are more immediate and problematic matters to deal with. Of course there will be some libertarians whose priorities are out of order, but that can go for every human being on this planet.

While she does a pretty decent critique of the Salon article, she demonizes "liberals," an unfortunate trait quite a lot of libertarians take part of.

Another great issue brought up is that the author of the Salon article never truly mentioned why he became a libertarian in the first place...unless you sincerely count burning your own garbage. Even more, he did not provide information, not even a legitimate summary, on how his views changed from being a libertarian into a liberal...unless you count his Canadian "goddamn liberal" of a wife. I really want to know if his furiousness at the tainting of the word "freedom" has anything to do with his conversion. If it does, that is just strange. If it does not, then some of these things mentioned are just random and irrelevant ramblings.

All in all, this piece does bring up a few issues that need to be discussed amongst libertarians. In my opinion, the jerkiness of some ("STATIST!") and those conspiracy theorists have probably done the worst damage. In all truthfulness, lately, I am not sure how I feel towards libertarianism. It looks good on paper - looking at what Adam Smith to Gary Johnson have to say, but then you deal with the real-life libertarians. I sometimes feel like an outcast because I consider myself to be a libertarian. Then I also feel like an outcast with my fellow libertarians because I do believe government intervention is necessary to a degree in a capitalist society, and that causes some of them to freak out at me and attempt to insult my identity and intelligence. If the cocky attitude continues to persist, I might change allegiance to the Democratic Party...and that is saying something since this quiz determined me to be least aligned with them.

If libertarians aren't careful, I just might write a better-articulated sequel.

On an ending note, please stop using "liberal" as if it was a demeaning word.

Salon and Alternet publish so many articles that (unfairly) bash libertarianism, and I plan on responding to all of them. Please ensure me a livable income as I devote thousands of hours to completing this task.