"
Bread and circuses" (or
bread and games) (from
Latin:
panem et circenses) is a
metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement. In the case of politics, the phrase is used to describe the creation of public approval, not through exemplary or excellent
public service or
public policy, but through diversion; distraction; or the mere satisfaction of the immediate, shallow requirements of a populace,
[1] as an offered "palliative."
Juvenal decried it as a simplistic motivation of common people.
[2][3][4] The phrase also implies the erosion or ignorance of
civic duty amongst the concerns of the common man.
In modern usage, the phrase is taken to describe a populace that no longer values civic virtues and the public life. To many across the political spectrum, left and right, it connotes a supposed triviality and frivolity that characterized the
Roman Republic prior to its decline into the
autocratic monarchy characteristic of the later
Roman Empire's transformation about 44 B.C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses
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