As I walk through clouds of pot smoke on New York City sidewalks and scroll through the comments section of internet newsfeeds, the figure of speech “Bread and Circuses” comes to mind. Credit for this phrase belongs to Juvenal, a Roman poet of the late first and early second century AD. He was criticizing the common people for selfishly neglecting important issues by allowing the imperial leadership to placate them, saying “the People have abdicated our duties—everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” He was referring to the practice of Roman emperors giving free wheat to citizens and staging costly circus games as a means to distract the public from the fact that they were self-interested and incompetent. Although Augustus disapproved of a grain dole on moral grounds, he and every emperor after him still took credit for it.

Not much has changed, has it?

Don’t let anyone tell you that pot is not addictive, and I speak from experience. There was a time in my life when I smoked every day, and running out of it created a feeling of intense deprivation, perhaps not physically as with alcohol or opiate withdrawal, more of an acute emotional distress, the anxiety of having to face the day “straight” because I felt I couldn’t be creative without it.

Ultimately, I stopped. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t a concerted effort to go on the wagon, it was just that out of the blue being straight felt more interesting than being stoned.

 From Medicine to Mainstream

Marijuana does have medicinal uses, the most common of which is for pain control. The extract from hemp known as CBD (cannabidiol) has few, if any, intoxicating properties—in other words, it’s like pot without the high that leads to psychological dependency. Benefits of CBD include relief from insomnia, anxiety, spasticity, and pain, and treating conditions such as epilepsy. But why make marijuana legal across the board? It does seem excessive to send someone to prison for twenty years for selling weed, but that could have been addressed by decriminalizing it without making it completely legal. There was an underground pipeline in place, but since against the law, it kept both the supply and the demand side cautious, providing some natural self-regulation. It seems to me making it a finable offence, like disturbing the peace, would achieve the same thing; the hassle of paying a fine would keep a measure of control in place. Instead, there are marijuana shops everywhere you look, making it as normal as buying a loaf of bread. And for many, sooner or later, becoming a dietary staple.

Circuses in Cyberspace

In ancient Rome, the circus half of “Bread and Circuses” involved chariot races and gladiatorial games where an armed combatant entertained audiences by fighting other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Today the gladiator games take place in internet chat rooms and newsfeed comment sections. It seems whatever the issue is, no matter how truly important or relatively minor, it quickly devolves into a war of words that goes right for the jugular. The entire exercise seems to exist for the benefit of showing who can anonymously deliver the maximum ridicule of another person’s presumed character or imagined physical traits, and now that the term “micro-penis” has entered the lexicon there’s a whole new echelon of mockery to revel in.

Using sarcasm to show the weakness of someone’s argument is time honored; there was a time when it was the province of deft political satire, but that gig has been commandeered by so-called late night “comics” delivering one-sided screeds masquerading as stand-up comedy. Whether it’s delivered from a television sound stage or by a smug owner of a personal computer sitting at their kitchen table tapping away and triumphantly hitting the send button, both share the common trait of believing they’ve just cleverly presented a lethal and stealthy dose of scathing wit sure to demolish an opponent, oblivious to the fact that they are as clever as a heart attack and as stealthy as a roaring drunk at a Quaker prayer meeting.

Oh gosh, did I just do the same thing? In my defense, I’m commenting on the social landscape at large, not disparaging someone by name, thanks to a Reply button there for the clicking. That’s the thing about the internet—it’s automatically intimate yet callous and anonymous at the same time.

In our modern era of Bread and Circuses, we’re invited to feed our brains with fog to our heart’s content knowing we can do so legally, and amuse ourselves by either watching the feelings of others torn to shreds in a public arena, or after donning the gladiator armor of faceless cyberspace, fearlessly subjugating people for the sake of it.

Politicians encouraging a national partisan nightmare to distract from their self-interest and incompetence are today’s imperial leaders, made easier by a public invited to feed their brains a steady diet of distraction and gratify their inner gladiator by venting against easy targets in cyberspace.