"And Then They Died"....

I oft wonder what pop culture was like in the last days of Rome....I feel that it probably was as depressing and hopeless as ours is today. An Iron Age civilization takes centuries to die, an Information one? a couple of generations.
Look at three of the most popular genres. Romance has the main characters prefering Undead Partners to Living ones. Sci-Fi-Fantasy. Once ways to work out problems and for Good to Beat(back) Evil, now perfectly exemplified by "The Road". Alomst everyone is Dead and the Survivors are eating each other. AND THAT'S THE HAPPY PART!!!! And for my fav genre, Horror? Once the world of Morality Plays wher Bad Folks got their Comuppance, it's now the reverse. A perfect Example is out of one of the few really civilized countries in the world, New Zealand. 'Last of the Living' is about 3 loveable lunkheads that survive the END by ignoring cries for help, eating junk food and playing videogames. Forced by their gonads(implying that men would only do the Right Thing simply to get Laid)into helping a female scientist get a sample that may help cure the disease, they struggle only to find out that it only makes the victims more dangerous. The last scene is the only survivor of the lunkheads dying of Exposure in a rowboat in the ocean. The Moral? Ignore your fellow man and you'll be better off.....
Godz help us 'cause we certainly won't...
Truth,
Pat