The tragedies and truths of life can be found in Shakespeare and the Bible. They’re on the inside, folks. The remainder of experience (large or small, depending on our mood) is like that of the rube on the midway: we have some excess cash, and time, and are willing to expend both for the promise of getting our backs scratched. Politics is, inescapably, pageantry, which is to say appeal to our egoism; entertainment, to our lusts. Religion and art, those correctives, are as liable as everything else on the midway to debasement.
