CHINA ANNOUNCES INITIATIVE TO FIGHT TRASH CULTURE

        Many other nations outside the grip of American Exceptionalism understandably are concerned about preventing the now-obvious cultural rot prevailing in the United States from spreading like a plague into their own cultures. China has been no exception to this trend. The Chinese Government has held a fairly strong line against the importation of recreational drugs and the degenerating influence of America's Media Culture. Resistance to these things has led to a revival in the United States of the Yellow Peril genre in the American Media; which, unlike the Chinese Media, rarely distinguishes between Information and Entertainment.

      China today announced an updated set of guidelines for television programming. They read in part: "The creators should avoid wrapping absurd stories under the guise of realism and using absurd artistic techniques as an excuse to fabricate overly bizarre plots that lack genuine value...It also emphasizes that short-form dramas must not deliberately create appealling points through content that promotes materialism, flaunting wealth, power, or hedonism. The theme and the characterization of the protagonists should not deviate from mainstream values, and micro dramas should avoid promoting the views of getting something for nothing, instant success, or overnight wealth."

      If we had a Standard of Ethics like that in the American Media, 95% of our content would go offline: in fact, probably nothing but archived public-domain television and Classic Movie channels would be left. Not to say that it wouldn't be a positive thing if it happened here; but our Culture is too far gone at this point, and the very thing that China seeks to prevent actually defines contemporary American Culture in many ways.

    When we had a competitive Media Industry in the US, there were Professional Codes of Ethics which had similar guidelines to what China has. There were trashy, low-grade media outlets in existence: but most of them were on the fringes of society. Today, they've become Mainstream Media while productions that involve overly bizarre plots that lack genuine value clearly are on the margins. 

    If Americans still had a capacity for feeling shame, they would be mortified at the fact that the Communist Party of China has a greater commitment to upholding traditional values than we have; we might also start examining how far our own values have degenerated. It's reached the point where celebrities and Media Moguls are being put in charge of running important positions like the Department of Education, the Defense Department, and overseeing government spending, while football stars and talk-show hosts are considered prime candidates for positions like Senators and Governors. 

   That type of soul-searching is badly needed on our part, but is unlikely to happen since our same gutter-level Media has more or less programmed the American mind to believe that anything that China (or any of our other designated scapegoats) do must be bad. We ought to reflect instead upon how their families are stronger, their schools produce educated and productive citizens and they have nothing like the rates of addiction, declining mental and physical health, crime, and gender dysphoria that we have. Our system is supposed to be better; maybe we should start asking ourselves why it once was and why it no longer is.