Has anyone been to the circus lately? Of course not. The reason why is because it isn’t the least bit fun or amazing. No one in their right mind would choose to go watch tiny dogs do sad tricks for two hours while safety clowns take care not to fake-hurt each other. First, they got rid of the elephants. Then it was the tigers. Then it was the acrobats on horses. Then it was the clowns doing anything that could be interpreted by a five year old as dangerous. Then it was anything with a remote tinge of cultural difference. From a 19th century style enactment of the thrills and dangers of the great wide world, the circus became a study in safety-ism, ie not fun. Very soon, there will be no more circuses. And why did they get rid of the elephants again? Well, because some third rate circuses abused these magnificent animals in the 1970s, and were duly shamed and shut down and prosecuted. Meanwhile, “elephants are being abused” became a meme. No matter what reputable circuses did, insane protesters targeted them. Now there are no more circuses, and no work for circus elephants — who are extremely intelligent animals who enjoy performing and working with people. Children don’t care about elephants anymore, because they’ve never seen them. Good luck to future conservationists. Did the world become a safer, kinder place? It did not. It became much more dangerous. To deal with that world, we raised a generation of children who are incapable of dealing with even the slightest implication of pain or discomfort and have no links to the past, or to the realities of other places and cultures, and who are therefore incapable of understanding the world or making it a better place. Having never seen elephants march up Broadway, they lack any sense that the world can be a source of wonder and amazement. Instead, they watch porn on their phones. No one benefitted from any of this, especially not children or elephants.