Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Bread VS Circus
Alternate title of today's post: Lamest.Metaphor.Ever
We saw the movie "East/West" this weekend. I liked it; Bill found the French wife Marie to have been too much of an obnoxious risk-taker. As she reminded me of me, I found that somewhat alarming :)
At any rate, the pageantry of the Soviet Union during this period made me think of remarks from people about the USSR that, although things were pretty tight economically, there was a certain grandness to life under the Soviet Empire. And that made me think of the old idea of bread and circuses. I guess the USSR/US were 'mirror empires' during the (so-called) cold war, with the USSR more focused on circuses, and the US more focused on bread.
Like a giant game of rock-paper-scissors, bread (rock) naturally beats circuses (scissors). In this somewhat tortured metaphor, I guess freedom serves as paper, which is why government relies so heavily on trumped-up wars ('circuses') to cut through the paper of freedom.
¶ 1:26 PM
We saw the movie "East/West" this weekend. I liked it; Bill found the French wife Marie to have been too much of an obnoxious risk-taker. As she reminded me of me, I found that somewhat alarming :)
At any rate, the pageantry of the Soviet Union during this period made me think of remarks from people about the USSR that, although things were pretty tight economically, there was a certain grandness to life under the Soviet Empire. And that made me think of the old idea of bread and circuses. I guess the USSR/US were 'mirror empires' during the (so-called) cold war, with the USSR more focused on circuses, and the US more focused on bread.
Like a giant game of rock-paper-scissors, bread (rock) naturally beats circuses (scissors). In this somewhat tortured metaphor, I guess freedom serves as paper, which is why government relies so heavily on trumped-up wars ('circuses') to cut through the paper of freedom.
¶ 1:26 PM
