How Entertainment Has Ruined Society

In every sense, "ruined" is a relative term. On his third birthday, my cousin Collin received a bright red toy fire truck, which promptly broke after a mere hour of playtime, summoning a myriad of tears from the young boy. In my eyes, a broken wheel on a toy was not the end of the world, after all, Collin could still push it around with only three wheels. To me, the toy was still decently functioning, therefore I didn’t consider it to be ruined. However, to Collin, who could not see past the fact that right at that moment his fire truck had fewer wheels than was acceptable, his truck was unusable; it was ruined. By the same token, the definition of ruined varies from person to person, as the term relates to the condition of society. Though society is still functioning, it's functioning in the most superficial sense of the word. At its core, society is miserably ruined. To quote Shakespeare, society is "as rotten as ever oak or stone was sound," and on entertainment lies most of the blame.

In today's society, students take a different approach to dancing at prom, homecoming, and the like, than was customary of the generations that preceded. Instead of the low contact, save-room-for-Jesus type of dancing our parent's did at their dances, teens are moving their bodies in the way of the infamous "twerk", and bumping and grinding, one skimpy dress away from full fledged intercourse on the dance floor. When I had the chance to witness one of these dances-turned-orgy, the only thing I could think was, "what makes them think this is okay?" If it was just instinct, it was one I certainly didn't have, and if their parents taught them, then society is worse off than I thought. However, neither of these are the reasons behind...

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... To the hordes who feel as though Miley Cyrus' performance at the Video Music Awards was simply harmless self-expression, or that the book Fifty Shades of Gray is nothing more than a guilty pleasure for its middle aged female fandom, society isn't ruined. To them, these morally depreciating things are just one broken wheel on society; they don’t try to rid society of them because they feel they can still function with the wheels that remain. In reality, people don't realize how far into ruin entertainment has pushed us because it has been so long since morality has been the norm. Most just go on with their lives as if society is still fully intact, as if they are still in control, while those who recognize that society can't properly function on three wheels try to reverse the damage. My question is, "What are we going to do when all the wheels fall off?"