My son learned about the Colisseum on Rome yesterday at school and I asked him about it. In addition to the architectural features, he told me what we all know about the various spectacle killings that went on there. I told him that I didn't see a difference between that and what we so commonly see in television, movies, and magazines today, and that the only differences were technological.
For instance, I gave examples of the Arts and Entertainment cable channel on which nightly is shown sights that include real dead people shown close-up. These include slashed throats, bullet holes in foreheads and the powder tattooing that indicates a very close range execution murder, decapitated bodies and their accompanying heads, partially eaten cannibalism victims, rotting bodies of disinterred cadavers including the insect lavae consuming their heads. Then there are the popular movies, which while dramatizations, are still reacted to as if real. Television shows dead bombing victims including blood-spattered dead children. The History Channel shows dying and dead soldiers in footage and still photos of actual battles. Meanwhile, the daily news is dominated by the exceptions in the world, which typically include real murder, rape, war, famine, scandal, and catastrophe.
At the colisseum however, the distances from the spectacle were quite long. Most of the specators would have been able to see the struggle, a falling body, and perhaps some blood, but not much more.
My question to my son was "which is more barbaric?" He said it would make for an interesting discussion in school.
What do you think?
