As Rome disintegrated, the Coliseum was in its heyday. People fought animals and each other to the death for the amusement of the masses. Blood was spilled and corpses were dragged away by horses. A good time was had by all but not by those in the arena.
In 2013, we have a smaller version of the Coliseum called a cage. In it two men and women fight 3 or 5, five minute rounds and the winner is the one who forces a submission from an opponent or renders him or her unconscious or is adjudged as the winner by a judging panel.
As the combatants gouge, strangle, elbow, punch, head butt, knee kick, apply arm locks and leg locks which, if the opponent does not submit by tapping the floor would break limbs or result in death, the crowd goes crazy.
The sight of blood seems to get them going. They yell, hoot, applaud, swept up by the brutal game that some call a sport!
After all the events are finished, the crowd of men and women go home and feel satiated. Some might even feel sickened by the spectacle that seems to glorify extreme violence. Others might dream of doing the things that the combatants did. Winners of some contests can be heard to make primeval screams such as wild animals do.
Testosterone rules, our animal nature is given full reign in the cage. It is no different to cock-fighting or bull fighting except that the combatants are supposed to be intelligent human beings, noble creatures some might claim.
That we have turned to such bloody spectacles rings a warning bell to me. I have observed before that we appear to be devolving rather than evolving. In the cage there is clear proof.
I wonder when cage fighters will fight to the death to amuse the masses and signify the total decadence and immorality of our current civilization (so-called)?
It's a wonder that people like Murdoch haven't promoted it already. Instead of droning people Obama could capture them and make them fight.
As well, what about the inmates waiting on death row and the people in cages in Guantanamo?
The scope seem endless