Entertainment: The Apparatus By Which We Gauge A Falling Civilization Throughout history, entertainment has represented accurately the virtues civilizations value above all else. For example, the Roman Empire as a whole valued the virtues of physical and mental strength, determination, and a sense of duty… hence, the Romans built an enormous sports arena they called the Amphitheatrum Flavium (known modernly as the “Coliseum“). Going to see the gladiators became a popular pastime, where the Romans would watch the men fight to their bloody deaths. Ancient Egypt is another example; collectively, its people had great respect for the dead and for their gods. As a result, many Egyptians became skilled artists and potters in order to produce artwork intended to honor their departed countrymen. Given that by far the most popular form of entertainment in America today is TV, let us examine our own morals and ethics by looking at the state of television and movies. The history of our entertainment is not a bad one--since the founding of this country, pursuing the “American Way” has entailed valuing hard work, generosity, respect, and honesty, and in the past century, people like Walt Disney and his contemporaries have tried to emulate such morals with their work in the field of entertainment. In an interesting symbiosis, since their audiences expected to see such values in their entertainment the directors had no choice but to be creative and come up with good plot lines, messages, etc. However, such standards have eroded with the passing away of the pioneers of our entertainment, and they are continuing to fade from existence. On March 30th, 2000, the Parents Television Counsel (or the PTC) issued a comparison of television broadcasted in the years 1989 and 1999 in a special report called What a Difference a Decade Makes. According to the organization’s research, sexually explicit material was over three times as frequent on a per-hour basis in 1999 as it was the decade before, and references to homosexuality became almost 24 times more common than in 1989. In addition, foul language became approximately five and a half times more common than in 1989 and, while the frequency of violence in movies and television shows remained more or less the same, the intensity of the violence in television compounded. These facts imply far more than that entertainment is getting shoddier and less family-oriented; they signify a change in moral code for both developers and the audience their works attract. Of course, this is only one piece of evidence of this societal change; statistics further verify the assertion: Since 1960, there has been a tripling of the percentage of children living in single-parent homes, a quadrupling in divorce rates, more than a 200% increase in the teenage suicide rate, a 419% increase in illegitimate births, and a 560% increase in violent crime. Americans are collectively shifting emphasis from the values of generosity, honesty, and respect for others to self-expressiveness, tolerance, and indulgence in physical pleasure; to put it simply, we are choosing to value that which satisfies our impulses, or that which is easy, over that which is decent and ethical. As Edmund Burke put it, “Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without” (quoted by William J. Bennett in the Wall Street Journal). Those who know history may think once more of the Roman Empire. While the gladiators fought, violent crimes made the cities unsafe and more than 32,000 prostitutes flooded Rome. The general public was made incompetent by alcoholism, the government was weakened by political corruption, and the empire with the strongest walls against external assailants fell apart on its own. Give us time. Works Cited Bennett, William J. "Quantifying America's Decline." The Augustine Club. 1996. Columbia University. 3 Feb. 2006 . ObscenetyCrimes.Org. 2005. Parents Television Counsel. 3 Feb. 2006 .

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