TASTE.

Taste is under (greater) threat in America. And, let's face it, America has always struggled against its tendency to tasteless mediocrity by comparison to more ancient national cultures. Reading your Twitter feed or Facebook feed will most likely give you an indication of what I am trying to point out.

The word "taste" has several nuances, of course. Where food is concerned, median American taste is tasteless. Quantity has always trumped quality. American fast food is filled with corn, additives and air. Americans' preference for chain restaurants has succeeded in corrupting every ethnic cuisine which has attempted to make a culinary contribution to American taste.

The icon of America, the automobile, has evolved into a tasteless metal box on oversized shiny wheels.

The bulk of American home entertainment is also tasteless. Reality TV is just the tip of that rancid iceberg. Shows like "Shameless" celebrate American stupidity, criminality and addiction. Our news industry has fallen prey to barkers whose main concern is eyes on screens, not quality of content. Our music industry is a form of vapid soft pornography.

"The Deplorables" have been produced by those who have profited from marketing corporate junk to the relatively poor and gullible. Mood altering prescription drugs, theoretically the province of educated medical professionals, are marketed relentlessly on commercial television. They have replaced cigarettes and alcohol, equally toxic marketed products of an earlier age.

The simple fact is that tastefulness is an acquired state, not a naturally endowed one. It grows from proper parenting, education and practice.

If you have ever known an adult who had a deprived childhood, you quickly realized that deprivation breeds an insatiable hunger which precludes tasteful discretion. Those who are deprived as children spend their adult lives trying to compensate. Gluttony, hoarding (or collecting as a more sophisticated form), and chronic dissatisfaction  are symptomatic of early deprivation.

Taste comes with making peace with one's own appetites. This peace is hard to attain if you are always hungry, but it can be achieved with the aid of an educated mind. In contrast, the core story of Buddha is his choice of hunger and meditation over satiation and distracting opulence. But the message of Buddha's choice often resounds in the educated mind of someone who has experienced deprivation.

Taste is discretion. Discretion entails conscious restraint of emotions and appetites. Discretion entails educated judgment. This explains the deterioration of taste in America. We are living in a society of unrestrained excess in speech, alcohol consumption, eating, sexuality, visual stimulation, etc.. At the same time, "no judgment" has become a catch phrase.

Those who wish to destroy the refinement of Western Civilization to accommodate their ignorance have a ready-made American fan base. Bad public education, politicized higher education, the assertion of the worst aspects of other cultures as superior ... all these factors contribute. The complicity of corporate media in knocking down Western values also primes the public's susceptibility to disregard etiquette and heritage.

Individual life is a process of constant change. Society is a group process. Good taste is an indicator of an individual process of study and self-improvement. Bad taste is an indicator of a life of laziness and self-satisfied ignorance. Our society is no better than the collective lives within it. The obvious deterioration in public manners, public discourse and public places is an indication that individual Americans are becoming lazy, ignorant and self-absorbed. 

Eventually an irreversible tipping point could be reached. This has happened repeatedly in human social history. Climbing back from that resulting abyss of tasteless ignorance can take centuries.