In Act I, Scene 1 of Coriolanus, Meninius Agrippa tells a rioting mob of hungry Plebeians that the Patricians are like the belly. The food controlled by the aristocracy is best distributed by that class for the good of the people, just as the stomach gathers in the food from which it sends nutrients through the body. Menenius has the belly say to the body,
'True is it, my incorporate friends…
That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: and though that all at once
You, my good friends’
The passage is and is not an allegory, depending on one’s definition of allegory. Its subject has been a matter of debate both in Roman times and in ours. Should the Plebeians depend on the people in power, the Patricians, to control the distribution of food—or anything? What of information, also.
I suppose the social and pundit-driven media are also “bellies,” distributing information to the masses—for their own good. And recently, we see that with regard to information, there are those in the military and in other government agencies that control the information for which we hunger. So, as in the case of the Vietnam War, now we see that the military chooses to send faulty information to the “seat o’ the brain,” specifically, to your Plebeian brain and mine. An upset stomach reveals that the Afghan food we’ve been served isn’t as healthful as we were told. We know because we see it in the regurgitations of a collapsed government. And another tummy ache reveals that we can’t fully trust the food provided by the CDC, health “officials,” and reigning politicians, those Patricians who pick the menu and the quantity we are allowed to eat and digest. In fact, the belly of nanny government does the digesting for us, sending whatever nutrients it deems necessary into our veins.
Now, we have governors and mayors--our Patricians-- dictating COVID restrictions, including the wearing of obligatory masks that might or might not have any real effect save making people breathe in bacteria accumulating on the inside of the mask. We’re all on a restricted diet, the belly choosing the food according to its ideological appetite.
'True is it, my incorporate friends…
That I receive the general food at first,
Which you do live upon; and fit it is,
Because I am the store-house and the shop
Of the whole body: but, if you do remember,
I send it through the rivers of your blood,
Even to the court, the heart, to the seat o' the brain;
And, through the cranks and offices of man,
The strongest nerves and small inferior veins
From me receive that natural competency
Whereby they live: and though that all at once
You, my good friends’
The passage is and is not an allegory, depending on one’s definition of allegory. Its subject has been a matter of debate both in Roman times and in ours. Should the Plebeians depend on the people in power, the Patricians, to control the distribution of food—or anything? What of information, also.
I suppose the social and pundit-driven media are also “bellies,” distributing information to the masses—for their own good. And recently, we see that with regard to information, there are those in the military and in other government agencies that control the information for which we hunger. So, as in the case of the Vietnam War, now we see that the military chooses to send faulty information to the “seat o’ the brain,” specifically, to your Plebeian brain and mine. An upset stomach reveals that the Afghan food we’ve been served isn’t as healthful as we were told. We know because we see it in the regurgitations of a collapsed government. And another tummy ache reveals that we can’t fully trust the food provided by the CDC, health “officials,” and reigning politicians, those Patricians who pick the menu and the quantity we are allowed to eat and digest. In fact, the belly of nanny government does the digesting for us, sending whatever nutrients it deems necessary into our veins.
Now, we have governors and mayors--our Patricians-- dictating COVID restrictions, including the wearing of obligatory masks that might or might not have any real effect save making people breathe in bacteria accumulating on the inside of the mask. We’re all on a restricted diet, the belly choosing the food according to its ideological appetite.
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