Are We Really Any Different From Them?

[Guest Scanderbeg]

I was thinking about the whole Gladiatorial issue that was brought up and I was thinking. Are we really all that different? Whats are the mass'es favorite films? Action and violence is always the funnest. We crowed around and stare in awe in movies like The Matrix or Kill Bill, get that blood rush when watching Saving Private Ryan. If we don't see any blood, we get mad and start going "its so fake, where the blood on that sword."

 

We love the newest violent videogames with better graphics that have better facial textures which make it all the more realistic when we shoot them. The top selling games are Doom and GTA. We crowed around boxing screaming at the top of our lungs to "kill em", a vocal version of the thumb down. The most memorable moments in sports are the fights and brawls that break out. So can we really look down on the enternatinment of a culture which did not have the laws of the bible holding it?(Not saying anything against religion)

[Guest spartacus]

In this day and age the emphesis is the more blood and gore the more it sells!

Whilst it "fascinates" people, it is only fantasy not reality, you can take the most ardent gamer, that loves nothing more to kill/maim in his games then take him into the front-line in action, put a rifle in his hand and say there you go, you can now experience the reality and I bet he will run away!

 

I think most people including myself enjoy war movies etc but they know it is not reality, that is the point!

 

But as you say killing/maiming fellow human beings captures the modern imagination and always will

[Ursus]

In their distant origins, before they became secularized, the gladiatorial games might have had Etruscan religious origins - blood sacrifices to the gods and ancestors, or some such. I think that needs to be taken in account since most very ancient societies practiced human sacrifice. ( Including possibly the people who would become the Jews. Their neighbors the Canaanites sacrificed children to their gods, and this practice may have influenced some of the early Hebrews. It puts that "Abraham almost sacrificing his son" story in a new perspective).

 

As to the difference between us and the Romans I just think the Romans were a lot more blunt and honest. ;-)

[Germanicus]

I find it interesting to think about what came first, and I think you're right Ursus in what you say about Etruscan origins. I also think that Roman society was highly militaristic, with, particularly after the Marius reforms, a high percentage of male citizens having been in the army. I am no shrink, but judging by the way the semi detatched(comparitively) combat of today can effect soldiers and indeed, the way violence can effect anyone long term, I think all these factors contributed to create a society that could watch 300 days of gladatorial games per year and hundreds if not thousands of lives end in a bloody mess on the arena floor, without flinching.

 

All that being said, sad as it may seem, I can envisage there being a market in our own time for just such entertainment....hell there probably are such things going on, right now

[Moonlapse]

Have you ever seen ultimate fighting? not the stuff on regular cable...

 

I think it gives people, especially males, a primal satisfaction that can't really be found in large society.

[Germanicus]

haven't seen ultimate fighting, but I have heard about it, sounds dangerous - do people die in the ring or get permenantly maimed ?. People often comment that competative sport replaces combat for todays males, but unless that sport is full contact and violent, I can't see how one can fill in for the other. In one you are under iminant threat of violence and death, in the other you or your team are in danger of losing the match. Not really the same thing.

[Zeke]

Yeah something in the human mind just gives that thrill seeing people killed....because we are animals in the end and we all want to see the gallzel eaten. I usta to think that the Lion eating the Zebra was so cool!

 

Zeke

[Guest spartacus]

Here in England, their is still illegal bare-knuckle fighting!

 

Usually the fights are set up quickly to avoid police-detection and are help in remote areas such as countryside car parks, farm out-buildings etc

[P.Clodius]

Spartacus, have you been to one? That I'd love to see!!!

[Guest spartacus]

P.Clodius

 

Unable to answer that question!

 

You never know whos monitering the site!

[Fatboy]

In the long run you're better off fighting bare knuckle, or at least those little gloves the Ultimate fighter dudes wear. You get some good hits, and you fall down - fight over.

Its the sustained pummelling that boxers can take with the gloves that eventually turn their brains to mush.

[Sebastianus]

Spartacus, I didn't know that bare-knuckled fighting is illegal in the UK, that's very civilized of you :-)

 

As to the topic, of course we are no different than the Romans, laws of the Bible (?) or not. Maybe people who play video games would run away from a battlefield, but that's mostly because they haven't been trained properly... As we all know the Imperial Roman Army was very well trained before going to battle.

 

The hunger for violence and blood is excatly the same, it is just that we have the technical means today to provide this to the masses without actually killing anyone... and that, I'm sure, is a perfect excuse for someone who believes in some sort of universal (?) moral code. When in reality they are just as succumbed to the animal lust for violence and blood as the Romans was.

[dnewhous]

Notice a universal theme, that in order to enjoy the killing, you have to dehumanize your enemy to lower your inhibitions. The jews did this with their enemies, for they were ordained by God to go before the Hittites, the Canaanites, and whoever, and destroy them to the last every one, or some such. The Greeks and Romans had very racist/xenophobic attitudes about people outside of their kingdoms/empires. And today, it is very important for soldiers to believe that God is on their side.

 

Gladiators - in social stratification they were the lowest of the low. Lower than slaves, lower than criminals. Given that they are that low, you wouldn't feel guilty about watching gladiators kill themselves for entertainment would you?

[Q Valerius Scerio]

Yes, people have been known to die in UFC. I wonder what the reaction would be if there were a push to bring back gladiatorial games? Of course, it would be voluntary, any death row inmate would be allowed to play... I'd be for it.

[Guest Calledora]

This may seem alighlty harsh, but in context I think we may be a bit worse off than the Romans - the gladitorial games and hunts were for the entertainment of Rome but also as kind of a capital punishment. The Romans believed their values were higher than anything else in the known world, as such, anyone undermining those values were not worthy of society and were automatically condemned - gladiators, criminals, enemies of war, wild animals and christians: the Romans were out to get all of them simply because they posed a threat to the roman civilisation - so in retrospect these games were civic duty. If anyone in the forum proved themselves to be courageous the people of Rome would consider 'saving' their lives by not ordering their deaths - lets face it practically anyone who stepped into the 'ring' was a dead man before anyone gave him sword.

 

By todays standards we just do stuff for fun - up until recently fox hunting in England was justified by law, bullfighting in Spain is still a major attraction. And what will historians make of us? Masses of the public all around the world vote in their millions to see celebraties eat bugs or get covered in rats just so they can 'elimnate' them off a programme. So it's not like anyones getting bludgered to death - but lets face it - is the only reason people of the worl aren't voting for Simon Cowell to gauge out the eyes of an out of tune contestant is because it's not an option!? We havn't even got civic pride, roman morality and cultural values to stand behind.