How to Be a Better Dictator: Bread and Circuses

[osprey_archer]

To the illustrious President Snow

Comments

[asakiyume]

It’s hard to focus on even the most spectacular bloodbath at the circus when your stomach is so empty that it’s trying to eat your spleen.

... I just like the image of the stomach eating the spleen.

And roseneko is right about the "they'll become complicit," though I was shivering at "they'll get engaged," because engagement is such a hideous business buzzword these days.

[osprey_archer]

I feel a certain affection for twisting buzzwords into the most sinister possible use. I've been poking away at a letter in this where "mental health awareness" turns into a euphemism for turning in your neighbors with rebellious tendencies, because clearly rebellious tendencies are suicidal which is totally a symptom of poor mental health, am I right?

[asakiyume]

You are so absolutely right. "It's for your own good." And, as you know Bob, it actually happened like this in the Soviet Union.

[osprey_archer]

Yep! And in the antebellum south, some bright spark invented a name for the "mental illness" of slaves who wanted to run away: drapetomania. The cure: whipping and hard labor

rebellious emotive disorder

[asakiyume]

Can we have a spinoff of this where you write the fic of this? Or, frankly, would you consider this as a novel or novella, in an own-universe dystopia. I would buy, read voraciously, and promote.

I LOVE the concept.

Re: rebellious emotive disorder

[osprey_archer]

At very least, this is going to be next week's installment of How to Be a Better Dictator. (So much for using this purely as a fundraiser. The idea has taken hold of me and will not let go! It must be shared!)

As for a dystopian novel of my own: MAYBE. I think it might be hard to write as a novel rather than an essay about methods of social control; the satirical aspect might get lost in translation, especially given that the characters are unlikely to be in on the con.