by Robert Carey
Massachusetts Daily Collegian (U. Massachusetts-Amherst)
(U-WIRE) AMHERST, Mass. -- For the Romans, nothing was more entertaining than the games. The bloodier the better. They were enthralled by the mayhem of the gladiatorial arena. The sweet carnage of watching one person embowel another quenched their violent psyches and slaked their lust for blood.
Every important town in that expansive empire had an arena, an outlet for the people to witness and enjoy in the suffering of another human being.
Oh sure, the Romans were violent people, but eventually Christianity and barbarians overcame them. Soon after, their transcendental notion between mind, body, and soul shifted, and torturing the body was viewed as wrong.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
Slowly the Roman Empire dissolved in the sands of time resulting in the submergence of the primal desire for violence and mayhem. This is the desire that allegedly rests in the "id" of all human beings, that Freud once called "thanatos," meaning death.
Today, we have a new empire, a new people, and with it one old skeleton.
Like the Hollywood re-emergence of some Egyptian mummy that comes back to wreak havoc on the peaceful earth, this "id" desire has come back to haunt the American public. However physical violence is still no longer condoned in this society, and therefore Americans prefer to torture the mind and soul. Instead of arenas we have television sets, and instead of gladiators we have vain, self-obsessed people. We dangle a carrot of 15 minutes of fame in front of these poor stupid people's mouths, and lead them, like lambs to the slaughter, onto a talk show, or even worse to reality TV.
Meanwhile the sun goes down, people clear the streets, retreat to their homes, throw a heavily salted snack in their laps, and watch the idiot box. "Joe Millionaire" was one of my favorite reality TV shows to loath. I saw the final episode, literally only because I was hospitalized in a room with five television stations, and because I was with a friend who wanted to see it. If I was an "id" driven animal then, frankly, I would be quite disappointed with the ending to the show; there were no tears, or blubbering, a few feelings were hurt. But other than that it failed to rip anyone's life to shreds or cause the kind of grief-ridden outburst we've come to expect. In the end it was just a bunch of superficial women fighting over a man who had all the depth and integrity of a communion wafer passed out by Cardinal Law -- pretty tame by American standards.
But there is always Jerry Springer, the infamous master of mental suffering, and if it just happens to spill over to physical violence so be it.
Beside the brief glimmer of fame it provides, I'm boggled how anyone could be stupid enough to go on a show with such a nefarious reputation. It should be obvious, even to the most callow of minds, that being asked on a talk show spells emotional doom. I'm aware that the majority of talk show participants are just acting and that in reality most of the things we see on talk shows and reality TV are fake anyways. However, as viewers we should all be ashamed, because we know we're all craving to witness that moment when their soul is torn to shreds and the reaction that follows when the poor creature's heart begins to bleed.
Learn to control your primal urges.
