re: The destructive influence of Norman Lear shows on society in the 1970’s

He also founded People for the American Way.

You forgot Good Times (a Maude spinoff), which was probably about the most conservative, "in tune" with traditional American values as it could get in the 70s ... until they killed off James (John Amos' character, because Amos protested at the minstrel show that was bubbling out of the Jimmy "J.J." Walker character's popularity).

You sound real fun at parties.

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i'm more conservative than either of them now. so it's not like the conditioning worked.

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The messaging has always been there, the difference is we also had a conservative background and could critique the social commentary.

Sanford and Son was the shite. Fred was the best.....you big dummy!!!

Unlike All in the Family, Dummy (Lamont) was always seen as a pretty level headed character as opposed to Edith on All in the Family. Yeah, there was some messaging, but it was Redd Foxx and his comic antics that drove the show. Bunker although funny at times, was always designed to be the butt of derision by the other characters.

Demond Wilson is actually a preacher to day and very much bends to the conservative thought

You left out a biggie:

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Greenacres

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One if the greatest Sit-Coms ever.

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i enjoyed most of those shows and i didnt turn into a raging progressive.

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You and your stronger ilk weren't the target of Lear's divide & conquer / social engineering; The targets were the bleating minions of easily influenced, the mentally weak, easily aggrieved and "victims" of synthetic "racism" and of the other "isms" were.

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Nobody liked Meathead or the actor that played him. Time hasn’t changed that view.

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That's pretty much how I remember it when I was a kid.

Meathead was a moron.

Spot-on post about Lear's shows and their corrosive effect on the culture. As the 1970s wore on, there were additional dollops of propaganda all throughout television, like in the made-for-TV movies, and further series like "Family," "Lou Grant," and such. The whole decade in prime-time was awash in a haranguing, left-leaning preachiness. Some subtle, some not so subtle. Still some okay, non-politically charged shows around as well, but the percentage dropped hugely, compared to the previous decade.

It was a sea-change, in the 1970s. Before that, programming wasn't nearly so prone to soapbox messaging. You had a few isolated exceptions, like the smug and uber-obnoxious liberalism of "The Defenders" or "East Side, West Side" in the early-1960s. But it was amazingly scarce. Normal people generally did not desire heavy social-issues (much less highly slanted examples) in their entertainment. That was grist for newspapers and news programming.

Going back further, the old movie studio heads back in the classic Hollywood era didn't like 'message' type slants in their product, either. A lot of them had seen how film was used as vile propaganda by the Soviets and the Nazis, and were extremely wary of the power of their own medium, and quite disinclined towards any kind of slanted or propagandistic social messaging. A little bit percolated out in the Depression years, but altogether not that much. After the war, younger guys like Dore Schary 'did' want to go in that direction, and you started having a few heavy-handed films like "Gentleman's Agreement," "The Boy With Green Hair," "The Men," and such. Just kept getting worse and worse from there.