Asakiyume mita

I think we've always been a spectator society. Bread and circuses is not exactly new. Everyone going to the hanging of a notorious highwayman or killer (sometimes walking as much as ten miles in nasty roads, and bring the kiddies!) made that equally clear. We're curious about others. If there's something to watch, we watch it, without necessarily wanting to do it. And the more we watch, the more we want to see those skilled at the thing, as the surprise aspect has waned. Ancient Romans wanted to see gladiators fight, not a bunch of farmers or whatever whacking at each other. Likewise those who like to entertain have always been with us; since the advent of theaters, then radio, then TV/film those who like to entertain left the local scene to go where stuff is made so more could see them. But that doesn't mean local stuff has ended. It's just not the only game in town.

That curiosity and willingness to watch something surprising, exciting, or scary extends to social engagements, I think, as well. In the days when the only others to see were your neighbors, well, you listened to gossip as suited your particular personality, but the old saying about everyone knowing everyone else's business was a saying for a reason. You didn't talk about the mundane stuff, but the exciting, maddening, scary, or tragic things. Now you can know everything about [pick your celebrity/sports player/politician/writer/etc] because of the internet but I see it as the same as yapping about family/friends/village or tribe..

My impression is colored by the ton of reading that I did years ago, about the rise of literacy, especially among women, and how that pretty much transformed society. Men still ran things, but women's influence is only in the last few decades being understood. What changed was the methods of being curious about others: reading.