This is where I must disagree with you. While pundits are indeed propagating empty talk, the ULTIMATE cause goes much deeper. In Global Unitive Healing, I describe it, along with Ken Wilber, as the scientific reductionism which dissociated the different spheres of human knowledge and understanding and reduced all others than quantitative science to a very secondary significance. The crude materialism that resulted is just one step away from mindless consumption, including of empty talk and commentaries for mindless entertainment. The psychological processes of our current devolution go much deeper than the pundits!