At dinner one night, I made two fatal social errors in rapid succession. First, during casual conversation with two good friends, I began talking about American culture. Not just culture, but how culture is linked to power and the broader social structure. If your eyes are glazing over at this point, you are beginning to understand how my dinner guests felt. Now imagine you are only half-way through dinner and I am seated between you and the door. My second social gaffe was that I invoked the name of the infamous social critic, Karl Marx. And I had the audacity to state my opinion that part of what he observed about culture is correct. The conversation went a little like this: Me: You know, I was thinking lately about Marx’s observation that modern society is divided between the … [Read more...]
Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and the Election Hunger Games
With Donald Trump defending the size of his hands, Ted Cruz dropping out of the race the week after recruiting former opponent Fiorina as a running mate, Hillary Clinton marketing a fundraising “woman card” to take advantage of Trump’s misogynistic gaffe, and Sanders supporters arguing that voter fraud is to blame for his losses in New York and Arizona, the 2016 presidential campaign has been nothing if not entertaining. But just ask Katniss Everdeen—whether you find the games entertaining or deadly depends very much on where you are in the system. Welcome to the 58th quadrennial American Presidential Hunger Games. The term “Bread and Circuses, or “Panem et Circenses”, was used by Roman author Juvenal to describe the political strategy that kept the diverse and contentious Roman … [Read more...]
