A generation of circus monkeys.

It is harder to control an educated population. This has always been the case throughout human history, the more educated people are, the more opinionated they become and the more difficult it is to control them. Educated people understand their rights and their duties, they are harder to oppress, harder to manipulate and will not blindly accept command. This was the case in the late first and early second century AD, and that was causing the ruling class an issue at the time. In simple words they understood that it was harder to establish a dictatorship when you have an aware population. A poet by the name of Juvenal, came up with the brilliant theory of bread and circus.

Juvenal figured that if the majority of the people remained occupied with their basic desires, they will not elevate to higher levels of education, and thus will be easier to lead. It is at that time where Juvenal realized that many people are always willing to sacrifice their standards, morals, religions, dignity and many other things, in pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure of attention, pleasure of wealth the pleasure of self interest and so on.

The way the story started is with the circus, people would attend the circus to enjoy the show, to forget about reality. In the circus there were always circus monkeys. Animals incentivized by peanuts and bananas to perform weird, abnormal, odd acts to entertain an audience. At the time when you had generations of people aspiring to be doctors, philosophers, poets, scientists and so on, being a circus monkey was a not a favorable career choice. It was belittled, frowned upon and it was left for lesser animals, criminals and the lowest social class to pleasure the elite.

Fast forward a couple hundred years to today’s world, and the way it would look like to Juvenal is that in today’s world we released circus monkeys from the circus and let them into our circles of influence. We branded them as influencers and started following what they preach, we gave them the front row seats and started paying them in millions of dollars rather than peanuts and bananas. Circus monkeys lead the way our youth think, and because we gave circus monkeys the front row seats and the financial benefits that were previously granted to those of intellectual merit, we have created generations of people aspiring to become nothing more than circus monkeys. For a like or a share people are willing to break any boundaries, for extra likes we are willing to give up on morals, principles, religions, cultures.., for more viewership we are willing to objectify women, for more social acceptance we are willing to use our children as circus monkey, our wives and even our parents. It is a bottomless pit of ‘ acceptance lust’.

The latest pandemic exposed, to me at least, many truths that cannot go unnoticed. Million follower Influencers did not influence a solution to the world problem, unnoticed and underpaid doctors and nurses did. Naked internet celebrities did not clean out the mess, unknown janitors did. Over paid “Super stars” did not help bring about any safety in the chaos. Underpaid policemen, soldiers and engineers are trying to.

Just as it is easier to control an ignorant crowd, it is always easier to lead people towards ignorance than it is towards intellectualism. It is easier to ask someone to watch zero merit content on social media than it is to ask them to learn something new. People are more likely to follow someone for their nudity than they are for their intellectualism.

We live in a world with finite resources and we all have a limited amount of time. The resources we pour into elevating circus monkeys are better placed in innovation, education, hunger, famine, disease etc. The time we spend watching circus monkey pranks, scandals, so-called advice, etc. is the same time our ancestors spent building great things. In short, if Juvenal was to be here today he would either be very proud or very disturbed by the dimensions bread and circus took.

“Give them bread and circus and they will never revolt” – Juvenal