I just thought I would post this to see what you guys thought. Personally, I think it's despicable. This is yet another disheartening sign that our country has deteriorated morally.

I think it's more accurate to say that we're letting our pre-existing moral deterioration out of the closet and onto television. We're just about the last country outside of the 3rd world to still have something like the FCC which mandates a certain decency level. HBO occasionally runs a show that shows all sorts of crazy TV shows from other countries, and if you saw it, I think you'd agree America lags far behind in the "naughty/raunchy/morally questionable stuff on television" department. We're just catching up.

I know you probably don't find that amusing, but the way you stated it makes it sound like America suddenly became morally corrupt. I think a lot of the "moral deterioration" is just publicizing things that always existed. For instance, in previous more "morally sound" generations, men were beating their wives and cheating on them, but the wives (in general) stayed around, due to the stigma of divorce. Now divorce has become (in the macro-view, at least) more acceptable, thus when a destructive marriage exists, there is a way out. Revisionist historians who believe that we were once a 100% morally pure society that's gone downhill simply see a rise in the divorce rate as a sign that people don't respect the bonds of marriage.

Some of the same parallels can be drawn to other things in our society that have (according to some) suddenly gone downhill. I do agree that in some cases, America (along with other countries) has relaxed its ideas of what's right and what's wrong. But it's not like you can place hard-and-fast rules on a society that doesn't want them. That will only last so long (how 'bout that prohibition thing?)

So, really, television is just doing its job as the common medium of the masses, and it's reflecting what is (and has always been, to some extent) already present in society.