The continuing wasteland

Columnist David Brooks of the New York Times in an online chat session a couple of weeks ago on the decline of cultural discourse:

“One of the things that has always bewildered me is that [Americans] have a surplus of television shows that feature political chat and almost no TV shows that feature cultural or sociological chat — despite the fact that the latter topics are of more interest to people. You can turn on the TV at any moment and find 5 shows debating the Tea Party movement, but almost none debating changing parental norms, changing definitions of masculinity, etc. It’s hard to recall the last time a novel generated a national discussion, or even a history book. This imbalance also holds outside of TV — on blogs, op-ed pages and so on.”