This is key: culture -- because it is our culture that dictates the values and beliefs and behaviors of the mainstream, and as your essay rightly points out with plentiful examples, it is our culture that is devolving, and instead of culture teaching us to reach for self-actualization, our culture teaches promotes self-absorption and self-centeredness on a grand scale.

Now, the tricky part is that culture is validated by its members -- collectively, we get to decide what our culture looks like, and collectively, somehow, we have decided that idiocracy is the way to go, that we will value the lowest common denominator, instead of striving for virtues, seeking to be noble and temperate and wise -- instead, we have Taylor Swift who is supposed to teach us how to be women and the UFC to teach us what masculinity means, and all media to reinforce these ideas and give these ideas voice and resonance.

But, what can we do about it?

Push back, like you have here.

Speak the truth, that top to bottom, from politics to the pub down the street, our culture is a cess pool of meaninglessness and that this phenomenon has real and lasting consequences, and that, most importantly, humanity deserves way better.