Coming Soon to your Living Room: Colosseum-style brutality

Photo credit: Ben Sides, June 2022, Rome

Brutality: /bro͞oˈtalədē/ savage physical violence; great cruelty

Did you know, "In the last five years, threats of federal judges have jumped 400% to more than 4,000 last year – many of them death threats sometimes ending in violence." CBS News

Did you know, "the number of threats made against Congress has increased significantly. This year alone, there has been a 107% increase in threats against Members compared to 2020." Capitol Police Report

Ben Sides recently returned from a trip that included time in Rome. We got to tag along as he shared a kind of travelogue last night after VBS. As he came to a picture of the Colosseum, I wondered about how brutality as entertainment degrades our humanity. Paul says in Galatians 5.15, “If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.” Our acceptance and delight in brutality against the other degrades our common humanity. 

Brutality has a seller, a product, and a buyer. In the Colosseum, cruelty was maximized in underground gages, animals neighboring their soon-to-be-prey. As the flesh of humans was brutally torn, the purveyors of this spectacle had everything to gain. They were selling brutality. The victims were the product. The crowds were the consumers. Consuming brutality. 

Brutality begins with the use of words. Sarcasm is spoken brutality. Sarx is Greek for flesh and Chasm is torn. Sarcasm is speech that tears the flesh. Hitler’s actions were brutal. But, his speeches were brutal first. News media and social media is designed to maximize brutality. “Watch ______ take-down ______.” “You’ll never believe what ______ said to _______” Memes from disreputable sources turn patriotism into brutality, “I’m going to piss off my liberal/conservative neighbor by waving a _______ flag” 

Brutality never stays in the realm of words. It takes form. Insurrection and rioting is the form brutality takes in citizenship. Porn is the form brutality takes in the bedroom. Partisan infotainment and propaganda is the form brutality takes in the news reporting. Trafficking and slave-labor camps is the form brutality takes in commerce. Ecological pillaging is the form brutality takes in the environment. 

We have not evolved from the Colosseum days. Victims are still the product. And there are still sellers. But, all of us are the paying crowds. The difference is, we don’t go down to the Colosseum to be entertained. The Colosseum comes to us—through television and twitter. 

The early Christians made an impression on the brutal empire through their refusal to participate in the brutality. The New Testament ethic is unified in eradicating brutality from speech, from sex, from equitable and inequitable relationships, from citizenship…

An early Letter to Diogenetus sums up a non-brutal vision of the Christian disciple and community: 

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. (https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20010522_diogneto_en.html)

Imagine with me. Brutality can't live without sellers, victims, and consumers. It needs all three to thrive. The consumer is powerful. That means you. If the crowds don't show up to the Colosseum, it goes out of business. If the porn consumer quits watching, it goes away. If the audience quits Fox, CNN, MSNBC they go away. If you stop following brutal influencers, Twitter doesn't even need to cancel them. They cancel themselves. Watching feeds brutality. Like/follow/share feeds brutality. 

There is a better way.

Brutality doesn't just kill other humans. It kills humanity.