> So now we have a dysfunctional culture which is unable to cope with challenges like Covid, gun violence, and climate catastrophe because it has been groom

> So now we have a dysfunctional culture which is unable to cope with challenges like Covid, gun violence, and climate catastrophe because it has been groomed to be more emotional than rational, and the tone has affected everyone from the top down. The arc of cultural history you describe seems spot on. But I don't think splitting between "emotional" and "rational" is useful or even the root of what you describe. Emotion is a kind of reason too, only it yields affect. Much of what we reason out "emotionally" is the really important stuff - who we marry, whether to have kids, when to change jobs. I'd rather say, if it's true, that the quality of emotive and positivist thought has been equally corroded. I think if you truly take on board the thrust of the Trilateral Commission's action on the "Crisis of Democracy", the attack on emotional literacy has been even more vicious, and vital to the their aims, than the so-called "dumbing down of education".