The expression, "bread and circuses", is, according to various sources, attributed to the Roman poet, Juvenal. It speaks of the appeasement of the populace in an attempt to satisfy their base lusts for entertainment and filling the belly in order to distract them from the real problems resulting from a collapsing empire.
It has long been apparent to me that we live in the age of "bread and circuses". For almost my entire 54 years of life to date, westerners have been obsessed with entertainment, mostly sports (circuses, games) and later, food (bread) with a plethora of televised cooking shows over the past three decades. This is a clear signal of a collapsing empire, just as happened with Rome, and given that we really do still live in Rome, being a latter days version of it (consider how all of our governments and public institutions are closely related to the structures of ancient Rome), then it is not a stretch to recognise that the modern obsession with bread and circuses is an indicator of how close we are to the end.
However, what has really struck me is a popular television series, called, "Master Chef", which has risen to enormous popularity since its beginning a number of years ago. This program, in its modern incarnation, began in Australia as a remake of a similar program that originated in Britain decades earlier. The modern incarnation, however, has reached epidemic popularity around the world with now more than sixty countries airing their own versions of the program.
What really stands out, to me, anyway, is that this is a show which combines both bread and circuses and, given its huge global popularity, I cannot help but laugh out loud at how incredibly clear such a sign of the impending end can be and yet pass so many by unnoticed in the context of history, its apparent importance being about the show itself and its contestants rather than what it really indicates. Such great importance has been placed on this program for all the wrong reasons.
Anyway, I thought that I would mention that in passing.
