American culture today

In a society dominated by celebrity, almost everything, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, said Dana Gioia, the keynote speaker at Stanford University’s 116th Commencement. "Everything is now entertainment," he said. "And the purpose of this omnipresent commercial entertainment is to sell us something. American culture has mostly become one vast infomercial. …He noted that even the political process has become more akin to the entertainment industry, and that Hollywood considers politics "show business for ugly people." The dominance of celebrities and entertainment has had significant cultural fallout, most notably "how few possible role models we offer the young," he said. "There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child's imagination, and we've relinquished that imagination to the marketplace."

I have listened to many speakers over the years, political or non-political. They all made sense. However, I believe what Dana Gioia talked about is almost a crisis in America. It is also spreading globally through cheap entertainment and craving for instant gratification through a tendency to accumulate material wealth and not necessarily intellectual wealth. Individuals are becoming less whole. This culture values football players, movie stars, and sweet talking politicians more than a Nobel laureate, an artist, a scientist or a philosopher. There was a time when most everyone had heard of Robert Frost or Einstein or John Steinbeck. How many know or care about the recent Nobel Prize winners? These people do not even get the front-page coverage. Yet, the media bombard us with Paris Hilton, O.J. Simpson, and so on.

The society as a whole, the parents, the schools, the media, and the politicians have a responsibility to apply brakes to such cultural decline and to restore individual awareness and social responsibility.

Gioia urged everyone to "remember that the marketplace does only one thing—it puts a price on everything." Nevertheless, "culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace," he said.

Is it a flat world?

They look at their own fortune and declare that the "World is flat". They brag about "India Shining". But the pictures depict an uneven world for the other 700 million.




Elementary school







To the market











Brick maker





A poor mother & her baby