The most popular form of entertainment in Ancient Greece was the play. In the plays of
Greek playwrights, violence was not depicted on the stage. It was always off stage. Greeks
were not naïve. They were trained to fight and go to war. If they were to put fighting on stage in their plays, that fighting would have dominated the audience’s attention. They were more concerned with presenting the ideas, thoughts, interpersonal conflicts, strategies, moral issues, human realities and beliefs that were brewing in their society as acted out in the plays. In a complementary way, when the Greeks’ games of sport were popularized, they presented men’s skills not their brutality.

The Romans went for the jugular. Their popular entertainments were raucous bread and
circuses with the gladiators at center stage. There were gladiatorial exhibitions of brutal
physical triumph. The intellectual and social issues were ignored for the resultant drama.
Our entertainments seem to fall in a Roman direction. Our movies, our video games, our TV programs often emulate tendencies to elevate crude violence to a deeper and deeper degree.

Our entertainment combat heroes are super, muscular, and explosive beings. They feel unreal and dangerous.

Now, we have a leader who proposes an entertainment in or next to an arena called a ballroom at the Peoples’ House that will have pseudo-gladiators in a fake performance of brutality. Is it another rip off at the taxpayers’ expense or another way to make a quick buck for someone who is already rich? We know it is always a distraction from something that is more important.

What kind of madness are we subscribed to? We owe our care and tenderness to all outside
of the scope of such violent preoccupations; those who cannot participate or don’t want to
participate in such insanity.

There are many worthy projects and activities that could be funded and advanced. Why
does this leader waste our time and attention with these trivial pursuits. Let’s get serious and help each other. Let’s put the things center stage that have true human value; things like affordable health care, cancer research and literacy and homes for everyone.

George Munger

Amherst