Let me begin with a confession. I spent almost a half century producing pop culture, mostly for television. This admission is an act of penance but also suggests a degree of generational responsibility. Maybe a half century in the entertainment industry isn’t sufficient for a full understanding, but I observed enough at least to be called as a witness. I want to offer some observations based on personal experience as to what pop culture means and its long-lasting effects.

I will dispense with my long-honed theatrical skills and blow the ending of my story up front. The key to understanding modernity and its ultimate demise lies in the many failed efforts to find replacements for religious faith. These efforts included creating identities based on nationality, class, and race as well as utopian ideologies. But it was the mass media fostering a “pop culture” that was the most influential and powerful substitute for a meaningful worldview. It remains perhaps the last idol still standing.

And, as with all idols, it’s a phony.

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