Amusing Ourselves To Death
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt – Juvenal, Roman poet
The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay; the cause of the destruction multiplied with the extent of the conquest; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artifiicial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight – Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
In The Decline and Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776), Edward Gibbon argued that it was internal decay that was the true cause of the collapse of Rome. That was what made them vulnerable to the barbarian invasion that was the final blow. Like Rome, America today is a hollow shell of its former self – and similarly in decline and vulnerable to collapse.
In 1985 the social critic Neil Postman wrote the classic Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business. Postman talked about the consequences of the transition from a discourse of the printed word to the discourse of television in the second half of the 20th century. His discerning and prescient argument is even more relevant 40 years later with the internet and iPhones. Americans today are preoccupied with trivialities and our character as a nation has lost the substance that once made us great.
In 2008, Mark Bauerlein wrote The Dumbest Generation: How The Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans And Jeopardizes Our Future. Young Americans today hardly read. They don’t know the most basic facts about our history. Instead, they watch TikTok, message each other on Snapchat – and watch online pornography.
Bread and circuses predominate in American culture today. Food stamps didn’t even exist until the 1960s. In 2000, 17.2 million people were receiving food stamps at a cost of under $15 billion to the government. In fiscal year 2022, the number of recipients had risen to 41.2 million at a cost of about $114 billion (“Bread And Circuses, Then And Now”, Richard Vedder, The Independent Institute, October 9, 2023). In my apartment complex there is a group of young people in their twenties living in one of the apartments who stay up all night and sleep all day. Sometimes they sit on the curb during the day and glare at the passersby.
Sports has become a massive business. On ESPN you can watch almost any sport you want anytime you want. I personally like to watch NBA basketball from time to time to relax at night. But I am frequently aggravated by the advertisements for despicable horror movies that disturb my peace of mind. Lately they have been for the movie “Abigail”. I used to enjoy going to the movies growing up. I named my business after a favorite 1980s classic. These days Hollywood rarely produces anything I have any interest in seeing.
Our politics is rotten too. It wasn’t too long ago that Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson were our President. This year we can look forward to a rematch of Biden and Trump. I wouldn’t vote for either of them for city council.
A surge of illegal immigration has ruined America’s cultural cohesiveness. The country used to be a “melting pot” where immigrants from all over the world adopted American values and assimilated. Nowadays immigrants exclusively maintain their ethnic identity and tribalistic conflict between groups is the norm.
People don’t even stop at red lights or follow basic traffic safety rules anymore. Driving on the freeway is a war of all against all.
With the current war in the Middle East, we are one accident or provocation away from World War III. Make no mistake about it: this is a civilizational crisis.
