we’ve been given too much bread and too many circuses

For a while I celebrated the idea that we were in the “Golden Age of Television.” So many amazing shows, stories being told so exquisitely. But the more I think about it, the more that the ancient roman proverb of Bread and Circus seems more apt. I sit in front of a computer screen all day for work. On my breaks, I browse Lemmy on my phone. When I get off, I work out while staring at another screen in the gym. While making dinner I put on whatever NBA game is currently playing. While eating dinner I watch a show. After dinner I watch a comedy series while I eat dessert, occasionally browsing the internet simultaneously. My whole day, from when I wake up, to right before I go to bed, consuming content from a screen.

I wonder how many are like me, and how many of us are successfully using this constant stream of info- and entertainment to dull the pain of living like this. And what would it take for us to truly resist.

I think you’re right in that it would take hardship. We’re all mostly two missed paychecks away from our living standard collapsing, that could do it. But then that begs the question, how does one resist the rise of fascism? Because I’m beginning to think that voting may not save us when those in power are completely divorced from public outcry or consequences. When peaceful opposition is made impossible (or illegal on certain college campuses), when they round up and deport those that would publicly question their authority, when our elected leaders wring their hands in mocking frustration over all the nothing they’ve tried… well, perhaps violence is the answer after all. What other means have they left us?