Panem et circenses
On July 26, 1920, in the Baltimore Evening Sun, H.L. Mencken observed:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
Let’s see, January 20, 2001? And yet, the path was also forseen much earlier:
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
Satire X, Juvenal
This entry was posted at 1:14 pm on 23 April 2008 and is filed under Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
I would agree, and the root of this issue is that a vast majority of people I run into have minimal self-awareness. This seems much worse in the United States than in Europe, but I suspect it stems from our underlying anti-intellectualism that is demonstrated at every turn.
Why don’t we just have an autocratic form of government and get it over with? We won’t have to think at all (Sarcasm alert).
Really though, in reading the passage, Hitler came to mind as one of the most devious with his minimalists in tow. What’s the difference?
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Enough people seem aware of all this at some level, but there is so much denial when the ideas are applied at a personal level. It’s always somebody else who is to blame.