Urban spectacle historically serves both social pacification and revolutionary mobilization.

Evidence

‘Bread and circuses’ is an ancient and well-tried formula for social control. It has frequently been consciously deployed to pacify restless or discontented elements in a population. But spectacle can also be an essential aspect of revolutionary movement (see, for example, Ozouf’s, 1988, study of festivals as a means to express revolutionary will in the French Revolution). Did not even Lenin, after all, refer to revolution as ‘the festival of the people’? The spectacle has always been a potent political weapon. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 551

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Urban spectacle serves as a political weapon for both control and revolt. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 551

Broader Connections

• Urban spectacle serves as a political weapon for both control and revolt. #corroborates (0.97) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 551