The Age of Gladiators

We live in a society that rewards mimetic rivalry. That can only attract more to its spoils like moths to a thousand quickly-extinguishing flames.

Scene from the movie “Imitation Game”—in my latest essay for The New Atlantis, I argue that culture war is an imitation game. Many have become experts at playing it. Unfortunately, they are models.

We live at a time that seems to reward mimetic rivalry. The fastest way to online “relevance” is to pick a fight with the right person and hope they care enough to fight back—in other words, to intentionally get yourself in a pseudo double-bind.

There is no longer one gladiator show in the Colosseum, but a million scattered all over the internet.

Don’t worry: I won’t say that I fear this is “threatening the fabric of our democracy”, as everyone seems to think everything is doing these days—hell, this may just be democracy working. However, I do think that this dynamic is creating a new class of cultural Elites. And the ones that are rising to the top and purging the old elites are those who are simply most combative.