Learning from Megxit: Our device-driven "bread and circuses (while we remain) supine in the face of the social and democratic collapses."

Amid this analysis of the British royal family's latest effort to confirm its own senselessness, there's a very valuable point that I wish I'd found the words to describe.

First, the pitch.

The Real Megxit Deal, by John Davis (CounterPunch)

In a move that reflects the time-worn pathologies of powerful aristocratic families, the House of Windsor has agreed to allow the Queen’s grandson, Harry, currently sixth in line to the throne, and his California-born wife, Meghan, to leave the family business (The Firm) and attempt to establish independent lives in Canada, a former colony which remains a member of the British Commonwealth. This represents their exile from the territorial, ceremonial, financial, and emotional heart of the royal family.

The gimcrack contrivance of the constitutionally constrained modern royal family was immediately apparent upon its founding in the late seventeenth century.

Now, the section with universality quite apart from the United Kingdom.

Enthralled by freshets of free entertainment enabled by personal electronic devices, and the increasing availability of cheap consumer goods brought directly to one’s attention by those self-same devices, we exist in a perfect storm of twenty-first century bread and circuses – supine in the face of the social and democratic collapses that fester under such conditions of popular disinterest, inattention and apathy.

Royalty, heads of state, captains of industry, sports and entertainment stars offer up their lives in service to the insatiable maw of those who trade information for the privilege of exposing consumers to targeted advertising. They are but the tip of the pyramid, the base of which consists of all those who contribute cat videos, personal vignettes and the like to social media. Goods routed to consumers, along global supply routes and hub and spoke distribution networks, do so only upon the initial capture of their consumers’ attention on, most often, the tiny screens of their devices. (The actual production of those goods remains largely hidden from their consumers eyes, spread across the planet, most often in areas of poverty-wages, pollution and environmental vulnerability).

Bread, circuses and hard facts: "3 Billionaires Really Do Have More Wealth Than Half of America."

Part of it has to do with the "right" to 24/7/365 entertainment and dollar menus.

"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metonymic phrase critiquing superficial appeasement. It is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

Juvenal, who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.

Another part references the inability of a hamster to make sense of his confines while yoked to the wheel.

Then there's the capacity for humans to embrace self-delusion; historically this trait is best illustrated by religious belief. Our reward won't come HERE, but THERE, up in the sky.

Pitchforks, anyone?

Bernie Sanders Is Right: 3 Billionaires Really Do Have More Wealth Than Half of America, by Chuck Collins (Common Dreams)

And in addition to the 3 billionaires Bernie mentioned, we should also be worried about the expanding fortunes of multi-generational wealth dynasties

The wealthiest 3 billionaires in the U.S. – Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett — now have as much wealth as the bottom half of the U.S. population combined.

Those were the first words spoken at last week’s 2020 Democratic Debate, citing a wealth inequality study by the Institute for Policy Studies.

In fact, Sen. Bernie Sanders mentioned the study, Billionaire Bonanza, several times during the debate.

Fact checkers at The New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN verified Sen. Sanders’ claims.

These extreme levels of wealth inequality are possible, in part, because the bottom fifth of U.S. households are underwater, with zero or negative net worth. And the next fifth has so few assets to fall back on that they live in fear of destitution.

Another might-fit: Bread and circuses.

It was only after publishing yesterday's ON THE AVENUES column ...

ON THE AVENUES: These 10 definitions will help you speak local politics like a native.

... that the term "bread and circuses" occurred to me.

"Bread and circuses" (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is metonymic for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the generation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent public service or public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace, as an offered "palliative." Its originator, Juvenal, used the phrase to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns. The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of civic duty amongst the concerns of the commoner.

There is a degree of symmetry between "bread and circuses" and another phrase, "let them eat cake."

While it is commonly attributed to Queen Marie Antoinette, there is no record of this phrase ever having been said by her. It appears in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Confessions, his autobiography (whose first six books were written in 1765, when Marie Antoinette was nine years of age, and published in 1782). The context of Rousseau's account was his desire to have some bread to accompany some wine he had stolen; however, in feeling he was too elegantly dressed to go into an ordinary bakery, he thus recollected the words of a "great princess". As he wrote in Book 6:

Enfin je me rappelai le pis-aller d’une grande princesse à qui l’on disait que les paysans n’avaient pas de pain, et qui répondit : Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.

Finally I recalled the stopgap solution of a great princess who was told that the peasants had no bread, and who responded: "Let them eat brioche."

See what I did there with the French phrase?

At any rate, in France (and most of Europe) bread was daily subsistence for the peasants, and brioche (cake) a richer and more expensive treat, so to suggest that the peasants might eat cake in the absence of bread was to be oblivious to socio-economic reality -- as when pricing season passes for a water park intended for all, as opposed to some.

As rhetorical swords go, "bread and circuses" is double -edged. We might express disdain for the ruler who distracts the people with restaurants and free performances, but what of the people permitting themselves to be distracted?