Thursday, July 11, 2019

Thoughts on Making Entertainment Our Priority

Some of you who read this may be familiar with Juvenal's Satires, one of which (#10) laments that the People "now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Recently, I've been seeing/hearing a lot of chatter about the World Cup, and I actually took the time to watch this year's Women's Final match. Fans interviewed during Wednesday's ticker-tape parade gushed about how important this victory was. Well, it wasn't that important. The soccer team won a soccer tournament, and I'm happy for them, but it was a soccer tournament. Nothing has been changed, and the whole competition is already well on the way to becoming answers in sports trivia competitions.

I think that's the big danger of our apparent hunger for entertainment. What might have been a healthy distraction has become a priority. In society, we venerate entertainers - including athletes - above all. Our universities are judged on their athletic programs.

With the passing of Ross Perot this week I am reminded of a time when we challenged the assumption that we had to choose between a Republican or a Democrat to represent us. Certainly, neither Party is even the least little bit interested in representing you or me, but we accept that. Lincoln was elected President just six years after his party was founded

In fact, choosing our representatives is something that we do have the opportunity to control, especially at the local level, but we don't vote in primaries where candidates are chosen or in local elections where local voters can actually make themselves heard.

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