It seems todays mainstream media has become much more shallow and overly obsessed with the individual. This is not a new trend, I know this, but the rate that we are becoming self-absorbed is much more alarming than I realized. This can be seen by the fact that most Hollywood celebrities would rather convert to religions such as Buddhism and Scientology, where they are not subject to any divine judgement. I do not hate/dislike Buddhists themselves, I am just saying that society has become too individualistic for us modern devotionists. This is the very reason religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are fading away, the fact that people are unwilling to accept subjection to any divine judgement, and a good portion of people would easily prefer a permissive society where they can do almost anything they want. Permissive society is mostly weak minded in my opinion.
That the media is shallow and self obsessed is a very qualitative argument based on some kind of moralistic interpretation of the terms self obsessed and shallow. I would not agree that media is shallow, but I would agree that it definitely has an obsession with its constituients. I don't think this has to be a bad thing either. Well I guess we should break this down into separate arguments here, a) mainstream media is obsessed with the individual, b) obsession with the individual is scaring people away from "more moral" religions, c) we need divine judgement to be moral people.
Media is definitely obsessed with people, but that's because it's made by people. It's been this way since the birth of media, since the first caveman decided to draw a painting of himself butchering a mammoth on the wall. All media, at its core, is produced to entertain people. Everything from a newspaper, to music, to Encyclopedia Britanica, to Joe's Almanac of the Occult and Bizzare, are fundamentally written to entertain. Maybe they've got some other goals in there as well, newspapers and encyclopedias are designed to inform, perhaps music evokes emotion. Realize entertain here is a pretty broad term, I don't expect you to necessarily have fun while reading an encyclopedia, but I would expect you to find it interesting and relevant if it was written well. What's more interesting and relevant than other people?
I also don't think that it has grown any more or less self absorbed. Since that caveman drawing on the wall, since the myths of the Greeks who made their gods in their own image, since Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, one of the most celebrated English plays full of emotion, jokes, and innuendo, since Amerigo wrote his fantastic account of his adventures in the New World (from which America gets its name), and the dime novels of the 1800s and the more modern literature of today, it's always been all about people. In fact, I'd argue that television are the dime novels of the modern era.
I don't think this is a bad thing either. First of all, we have to do it. You need to keep people entertained, that's just the way it's always been. The methods people are entertained have changed, from epic fictions to plays to today's "disaster theater" (possibly even disaster research?) that makes up quite a bit of cable news coverage, letting you take part in the great tragedies of the world and the heroic triumphs of individuals from he comfort of your living room.
For the second argument, I don't think rampant hedonism is driving people away from religion. I think religions are doing a fantastic job of that all on their own and don't need any help. That's what you get (and frankly deserve) when you preach a message of hate and intolerance. People will also only take so much "Science isn't real, ignore gravity" before they decide you're a moron.
Finally, we don't need religion to be moral. That's just silly. And if you knew anything about Buddhism, you would have realized the Eightfold Path is moral, and combined with the Four Noble Truths it's easy to see why the religion would appeal to a celebrity in particular.
Another thing that shows this is how a lot of mainstream music as we know today focuses on self pleasure and immoral aspects of society. Almost any shallow, no dimensioned song with a good beat and lyrics about fame, love, and drugs can become a hit these days. What happened to mainstream music that changed the music industry, that was well engineered, that had real artistic value and dimension put into it? If I dare show that I have a dislike for mainstream music that is played everywhere by everyone and express my own for a bit, I'll just be labeled as a "hipster", which is a very ignorant insult in many ways that I shouldn't even have to explain. I'm not trying to look cool by pretending to be against society, I have a true dislike for it.
Ahaha, well, you answered your own question here and I don't think I even need to touch this one. You said any music that has a good beat can become popular. How can dimensionless songs about love and drugs become popular? Because they've got a good beat. What happened to music that was well engineered, had artistic value, and dimension (whatever the hell that is)? There's your answer: it was well engineered, it has a good beat.
Another thing that is horribly bugging me is how a lot of youth today are also becoming more shallow and ignorant because of media and self interest. A good percentage of students these days would rather try to have love with others and focus on social relations than to learn important education from schools in which they can apply it to impact society in a positive way. Instead, some kids will like to think that politics and such are dumb because everyone argues so much and tend to ignore it and will most likely become a part of an uneducated and easily swayed electorate that will impulsively vote for the candidate who makes the most outrageous claims in the electorate's interests. This is the reason in my opinion why a lot of radical socialists are gaining support.
Kids in schools have always been trying to have love. It used to be considered appropriate for a father to bring their son to a prostitute as a rite of passage. Obviously we don't do that anymore. Failure of one student to study and become educated is the failure of one student as an invidual. Endemic failure of many students is a failure of the school and the education system.
Continuing with the youth, what has happened to the moral standards of most of them? The trend that the general youth population are becoming more and more ignorant and shallow as the years go by seems to apply. I see many people cursing out their parents on Facebook for a simple punishment they received for the stupidest actions, and then I feel bad because I see people who are angry over their parents for real issues such as divorce and such. It makes me sick, there seems to be no respect these days for the long lasting and moral foundation of the family. This is yet another thing I see permissive society doing, is trying to attack the structure of the family with its ideals, I dare you to prove me wrong on this.
Other things that permisive socities alllow you to do include universal suffrage, civil rights, and the freedom of religion and speech. Maybe you would like to clairfy what you mean by permisive society.
Gangs are probably the crowning achievement of the degrading morals within our youth. They usually tend to have no respect for anything outside the gang. The public disturbance caused by gangs and their lack of real world productivity shows just how bad mass media is promoting "Gangsta Rap" such as 50 Cent, NWA, etc.. Nearly everything done within a gang is a waste of the youths' time where they could easily be learning skills to benefit the real world and themselves instead of causing petty public disturbance for attention, women, and drugs.
Gangs are probably the crowning achievement of a failed public policy. The public disturbance caused by gangs and their lack of real world productivity shows just how bad local governments have neglected education and law enforcement. Just another side of the coin.
Also NWA is awesome, don't be hatin. Here's something you should look into, why did NWA write their songs? If you've ever listened to it it's as much poltical as anything. Realize where songs like forget tha Police came from, there is a genuine animosity between the two groups. Why is that? What is it founded in? I don't think you'll find that NWA wrote it because they hated the cops busting up drug deals.
Simple laws such as no stealing have also been challenged be less debated but still immoral things such as pirating. The preservation of human life has also been challenged by abortion, which I do not support unless under extreme circumstances. The natural function of nature has also been challenged by practices such as cloning which is not helping an almost overpopulated earth in any practical way. These debatable subjects are only increasing tensions within traditional and liberal forces within society, and usually don't actually impact society in a positive way for most individuals.
I think that it is odd that you would be against abortion and also believe the world is overpopulated and we should do something about. Recent projections suggest that the world population is going to peak at 9.3 billion around 2080-2100. There is plenty of open land for people to settle still. The reason food is so cheap in the US is because we basically overproduce it - there is a huge surplus of food in the US but it doesn't necessarily make economic sense to ship it anywhere else. A good portion of the food produced in the world is thrown out as waste because it's spoiled or nobody bought it. There's also ways to deal with food shortages, eating less meat is probably the simplest and would go along way. We already eat too much meat, and you could make thousands of loaves of bread with the grain we feed to one animal. More effective transportation methods could help too. Overpopulation would be the least of my concerns.
