Last Orders #2: High Farce
This week: The ancient solution to a modern problem; my New Year's resolution; Brendan Behan on critics; The second Lead Paint Prize goes to...
Welcome to Last Orders. As an avowed curmudgeon, it is my duty to say what others deem unhelpful. This weekly column leans into the belief that what came before us was more cerebral, more meaningful, more beautiful, less chaotic, and infinitely less tedious.
Last Orders is where Oxford Sour does its best work.
Each week, I launch my fountain pen at my plush notebook with scant regard for what is popular, acceptable, or even agreeable. I’ll be right and I’ll be wrong. But never will I sedate you with safe opinions or plain prose. Our world has enough HR bores and traffic wardens. We landed in this cultural ditch for one reason: too much flattery and not nearly enough honesty.
If civilisation must end, then we’d best poke fun and laugh as the waves of progress pierce the hull of common sense.
Pour me a treble.
High Farce
Life imitates social media
This week, we discuss the ancient Roman solution to the scourge of celebrity. Then I reveal why civilised people drink a bottle of wine in thirty to forty-five minutes. We also have Brendan Behan slating critics, and the worthy winners of this week’s Lead Paint Prize.
Salut!
Free to Rome
Modern problems require ancient solutions.
Oxford Sour readers may feel duty-bound to keep up with the Beckham family feud, but dizziness is the more honest response. When absorbing the New York Post’s foam-flecked coverage, one would believe the paper received payment by the word—by threat of death by lions.
For the mercifully unaware, Sir David Beckham once bent free-kicks between two posts, whilst his wife Victoria once bent eardrums to jaunty pop songs. All told, the Beckhams earned their fame and lascivious fortune. They’re at least good at something tangible. But the gods’ favour did not fall upon their son, Brooklyn. Hence, the Beckhams have fallen out in spectacular fashion. To this grubby theatre, the rest of us are slaves.
Such news would not, in more cerebral times, trouble the well-adjusted nor squeeze itself into the pages of any reputable newspaper. But these are not cerebral times.
The ancient Romans trained a watchful eye on such celebrities. Prostitutes, thespians, and other undesirables earned the title of infames. The Romans tolerated this class but warned citizens not to get too close lest they transmit their lurgy.
In ancient Rome, sneezing rats enjoyed greater social prestige—and posed less danger to the republic.
Why were the Romans, to transplant modern sensibilities, so judgemental? Why did they forbid infames from voting or from public office? Why not just let the infames live their truth? The Romans distrusted those who made their grain by faking emotions. Infamia was the legal and social penalty imposed on those who forfeited their reputation.
Peruse any major news story and you’ll discover a certain infamia threaded through it like Blackpool rock—inescapable, sticky, and garish. Modern celebrity is to culture what lead pipes are to water. The Romans had a point.
If it is not Olivia Nuzzi lunching on her ‘non-sexual affair’ with a promiscuous Kennedy (but I repeat myself), then it is Zach Polanski, leader of the Green Party UK, reducing care workers to ‘bum wipers’. (This from a failed actor and lapsed boob-whisperer.) Survey the entire cast of thespians and celebrities and you’ll find the vast majority hold views vagrant and bereft of common sense. A wedge of Stilton possesses greater depth and erudition.
Why, then, do we exalt actors and celebrities as more than neurotics marred by a pathological need for attention? Actors are great at pretending to be someone else. Many are worthy. But why do we presume such people hold special insight into human nature—or even the faintest grasp of life as it is lived? They are paid handsomely to suspend reality. They soon forget it ever existed.
In the 1990s, a phalanx of thinkers warned of the coming idiocracy.
One of these prophets, Neal Gabler, author of Life: The Movie, argued that entertainment values had replaced all else. We once praised actors and celebrities for their unique talents; by 1998, we had deified them as gods possessed of unearthly powers.
Gabler missed our social media age. Today, if one has the scruples of a famished hyena and a selfie camera, one can achieve fame. Gabler’s insightful book makes one major mistake: he refuses to say whether this transformation was good or bad, which is akin to not passing judgement on the flames engulfing your head. Neither did he suggest any solution.
I have one. It is much too late to reverse this social scourge. So what can we do?
In ancient Rome—mercifully beyond modern HR oversight—it was legal to beat infames on the street. Whenever one snapped a shoelace or had a disagreeable morning, it was routine to slap an infamis and make oneself feel better. This practice was later restricted. Eventually, citizens could only beat infames whilst they were on stage. Shortly thereafter, Rome collapsed. I merely note the historical correlation.
Modern problems, it seems, require ancient solutions—or at the very least, ancient standards.
