It is very obvious that TV has changed its focus. Today, more and more popular programs are focused on intelligent and educated characters.
The most popular global program is NCIS, a police procedural with a major focus on a forensics lab. Followed by a comedy, Big Bang, about 4 scientists. There are several other police procedurals that are very successful and several popular new programs such as Scorpion about a team of whiz kids.
Being smart and having access to a lab is now positive in the pop culture. Being smart or at least ‘educated’ is now highly touted in our society.
We are often told that a college degree means a high probability of creating a stable two parent family and having a respectable income. Conversely, low education is associated with weak families and low incomes.
It should be obvious that our country and many other modern nations are heading toward a great divide. The educated, the uneducable and the lazy.
We already sort our society, generally into a concentric circle pattern. The further a person lives from the urban center, (except for the black ghetto) the less competent and more dysfunctional they are.
I think this pattern will continue with a low education and lazy population moving even more obviously to the outermost ring of urban areas. The financial subsidies for this group will be most useful in such low cost locales.
We are headed toward a divide of education and competence in the inner urban circle and the uneducated and lazy on the outer circle.