you see I fully agree to that 1 but do you think we can change anything about it? We can discuss as long as we want to and we won't achieve jack s*it unless you'll become really rich one day and buy some serious a** media like for example MTV and try to do some work there. It's not the older generation that needs changes (OK maybe some) but the young people who follow this like you say pop-culture. Just take a look at the generation of 14 -21 years old, no morals, no respect, unorganized.
Edmund Burke wrote that
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. and I share this opinion. I think that people who have proper knowledge are obligated to try to hand it to this brighter part of young generation. Who knows, maybe some of them will gain enough influence to begin reinforcement of western cultural heritage. I don't believe in democracy, only elites are capable to move this world forward. Thus the most crucial task is to rear responsible elites.
we've been looking for the truth since the beginning of the humanity and tell me now, have we found it? My answer is NO because everyone has his own point of view about it. It is human to disagree, to think different, to live different etc. This is why we have wars, crimes, conflicts etc.
People are not perfect but always should tend to be perfect. The brightest minds always used to push the world forward and achieved really much. However in the age of populism people bombarded by millions of useless informations struggle to discover proper authority.
I'm afraid that this lack of respect that you mentioned is created by democratic mentality. I mean people without proper education who think that they are capable to decide about how the state should be run. So they are authority for themselves, this to the large extend killing their minds and in the end they have little respect for anybody else including real intellectual elites. They have syndrome of completely unjustified self-content.
If you reject 'old rednecks'
How many years have you lived in the states? Are you American? What do you know about rednecks?
I used this word for the first time and gave it a bit different meaning from traditional one. I mean people about 50 and older not only from the US. It has pejorative connotation that I wanted to underline. The point is that they are not bad people but that their minds are already closed for new informations. From my personal experience (including my family members) honest discussion with them about serious matters is pointless. Of course there are exceptions...