“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates, these were for ancient peoples the bait toward slavery, the price of their liberty, the instruments of tyranny. By these practices and enticements the ancient dictators so successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as little children learn to play by looking at bright picture books.”
-Etienne de la Boetie, The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude
Entertainment has always been an intrinsic part of keeping the masses under control. Eric Hoffer would, almost exactly 500 years later, in 1951 note in The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements-
"There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should at least be as encouraging as that they are suffering form intolerable economic or political abuses."
Entertainment has always been an intrinsic part of keeping the masses under control. Eric Hoffer would, almost exactly 500 years later, in 1951 note in The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements-
"There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In almost all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should at least be as encouraging as that they are suffering form intolerable economic or political abuses."
Boredom it seemed, was such a powerful force in the eyes of those in power that they would often spend lavishly on fairs, circuses and constructing impressive centers of entertainment such as the Colosseum.
No ruler, benevolent or otherwise-has ever spent so much money on a thing he felt was useless to the perpetuation of his power. However, in those cases where seemingly all forms of entertainment are banned yet the people do not live at near starvation levels as we see in parts of Africa, such as in pre-occupation Afghanistan, control can only be maintained by fear and constant hustling. In the bland and flavorless U.S.S.R. under Stalin, or the uniform individuality suppressing China under Mao Tze Tung, control was gained by the constant regimentation of nearly every aspect of life.
Again, Hoffer seemed to have understood this well-
"The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility. The goals are concrete and immediate. Every meal is a fulfillment; to go to sleep on a full stomach is a triumph; and every windfall is a miracle. What need could they have for “an inspiring super-individual goal which could give meaning and dignity to their lives?” They are immune to the appeal of a mass movement. Angelica Balabanoff describes the effect of abject poverty on the revolutionary adore of famous radicals who flocked to Moscow in the dearly days of the Bolshevik revolution. “Here I saw men and women who had lived all their lives for ideas, who had voluntarily renounced material advantages, liberty, happiness and family affection for the realization of their ideals,-completely absorbed by the problem of hunger and cold.
Where people toil from sunrise to sunset for a bare living, they nurse no grievances and dream no dreams. One of the reasons for the unrebelliousness of the masses in China* is the inordinate effort required there to scrape together the means of the scantiest subsistence. The intensified struggle for existence “is a static rather than dynamic influence.”
*(Hoffer wrote this in 1951, where China was not the rising giant she is today. The policies of Deng Xiao Ping aided greatly in the rise of China to her position today. Nevertheless, your mother‘s scolding of “Think of the poor starving kids in China!” whenever you poked and prodded your peas with a frown WAS true at one time-so listen to you mother and eat your peas)
Boredom is not an issue of those who struggle for food every day, it is a symptom of those who have met their basic needs and require something else to divert them. The poorest regions of the world have little to worry about in regards to successful movements against them so long as their people live on the border of starvation.
When considering the ways people are kept under control, it is more prudent to focus on their individual needs rather than outside methods of control.
So it may also be that economic hardship spurns revolt not only by forcing the people to realize what they have lost (or may lose) but also by cutting deeply into their entertainment budget, and eliciting boredom during which they have little choice but to boil in anger about their situation.
Ignorance is bliss, but so too is denial-and entertainment is an excellent way to deny our own miserable affairs-and hence, a way to control the masses.
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