I'm going to have to disagree with you on a few things:
..we are becoming self-absorbed [...] 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.
You equate conversion to religions outside of Christianity, Islam and Judaism as connected to being self-absorbed. Conversion to any religion happens because a person is either indoctrinated or convinced. People don't get up and say, "I'm going to join the Church of Scientology 'cause I'm not liking this divine judgment stuff!" It doesn't happen. Maybe a person could be put off by specific elements of their religion, like divine judgment, but saying that it is connected to an embracing of permissive society is a generalizing statement. I think all that you're trying to do here is impose your religion's (and related religions) superiority over others.
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.
Don't lose hope; there's people out there composing music with artistic value. I share your views on mainstream music; I dislike it and insults thrown at me because of that are ridiculous. However, as I'm sure you've figured out, mainstream music of the 50's is different than mainstream music of the 60's, which is different from the 70's, and the 70's are different from the 80's and so on. What's mainstream changes every couple of years, it's bound to get better. For now, my advice is that you realize that you are not the intended audience for mainstream music and move on.
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.
You're making a lot of assumptions here, first of all that the youth of today are actually becoming more shallow and ignorant. Your opinion-stated-as-fact here stands in direct contrast to the reality of things; more and more people are enrolling in college (
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/youthindicators/Indicators.asp?PubPageNumber=22) than ever before, directly because of improved education opportunities (
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/youthindicators/Indicators.asp?PubPageNumber=10). From that same website you'll find that dropout rates are decreasing, literacy is steadily increasing, and proficiency in most subjects in increasing. I do doubt though that this is the point you wanted to drive home. What you're fretting over here is that students are going to go off and vote for radical socialists. This is only a reflection of your fears of socialism, you've imagined a scenario and tried the best you could to apply it to the real world.
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.
You've put forward a claim with no integrity. Families have never been perfect, while you're complaining about the lack of respect for firmly-established family values you should be thankful that we've come so far. Remember the rulers who killed their siblings to gain power? Remember how parents of the 1800's beat their children regularly? There are still domestic disturbances, there's still divorces, there's still crazies out there who will kill their children, there's still child molesters, there's still conflict in this "perfect family unit". It's been there forever, it's nothing new. The illusion of a pure, perfect nuclear family is one we've knowingly deluded ourselves into. The worst thing we could do is force unstable families together. If permissive society is attacking family ideals, I don't see a reason why it shouldn't.
