Toxic tv culture

The decline of American culture can be seen clearly in the self-absorbed characters in daytime soap operas and the outlandishly excitable contestants in daytime game shows.

The 50-60 year runs of shows like “General Hospital,” “Days of Our Lives,” and “The Young and the Restless” play-out in glittering color the general outline of our own nation’s slide after World War II. Shows like “The Price is Right,” and “Let’s Make a Deal” reveal more than prices and prizes, as well.

We are experiencing a holocaust in learning in our schools, a debt conflagration in households, corporations, and government, inflation and large-scale unemployment, mass murders, deadly political gridlock, a monstrous wealth gap, retreat of the American empire, police brutality, and civil unrest.

But none of these shows, to be sure, cares a whit about dealing with fundamental problems in our society. Instead, they do their best to contribute to them and glorify them. They provide a leading edge for the utter vacuum of civic consciousness in our country.

Kimball Shinkoskey, Woods Cross, Utah