Fashionable Imperial Citizens

The Hunger Games depicts a type that's well known to anyone in the West. We see them all the time in our media or on the streets of cosmopolitan cities: Fashionable Imperial Citizens. The FIC wears the right clothes, has the right opinions, and makes their nest deep in the bowels of the Empire's main cities. They're completely cut off from the natural world and live in a delightful man-made creation that's made possible by injustice and oppression. In the case of The Hunger Games, they're in The Capitol, in our time, they're mainly in the world cities, but can be found in more remote cosmopolitan outposts.

I think the FIC makes for some interesting analysis. They show the correspondence between an individual's mind and opinions, and the mind and opinions of a meta-animal like an Empire. The opinions of the FIC seem to arise spontaneously from the needs of the Empire, or to zealously and automatically reflect its needs. You can find a good sampling of the opinions of the FIC on the front page of the HuffPo or The Guardian.

The FIC, like the Empire itself, regards the local customs and traditions that might tie an individual to his home and his tribe as obstacles to greatness. Such customs are necessarily parochial. This idea imbues the pejorative term "pagan", which once meant country bumpkin, specifically the people who adhered to the old, pre-christian gods. (Amazingly, the word only found currency in the 14th century!)

Currently, pagan has the opposite connotation. As Christianity became unfashionable, really only recently maybe the 19th century, and as Empire consumed non-Christian realms, other beliefs become adornments and costumes. Elements of the systems of belief that are opposed to the FIC and the Empire's needs can be discarded. The beliefs are removed from their origins and local ties and can be sampled like craft beers or worn like different hats. Of course, not all people who partake in these traditions are mere tourists, but then, those people aren't FICs. Real contact with these ideas is transforming and disruptive and renders the opinions and fashions of the FIC ridiculous.