Emotion vs. Reason

Earlier this week while working at the diner one of the regulars was lamenting that he's never seen a time in history so driven by emotion and logic is so very removed.  Granted I probably haven't done is argument the justice it deserves, but it's enough to let you know what jump started this train of thinking.  I think it is true that we are currently a very emotionally driven society, and I'm not so sure we can really do otherwise.  I think the down turn started in the late 80's and early 90's with the growth in popularity in talk shows.  I'm talking about both the radio talk show's and the television talk shows.  Folks like Rush Limbaugh and Jerry Springer began to blur the lines in very different ways.  The lines between logic and reality began to be blurred fueled through emotion.  What grew out of that were shows like "Real World" and the rest of the Reality TV craze, which amazingly has blurred the lines of what is real.  Is Reality TV depicting reality, a created version of reality, what reality could or should be?  Is Reality TV somebody else's reality, which perhaps makes my life unreal?  With this inability to detect what is real how can we operate on logic?  We're left to make our decisions on emotion, and politicians are among those who have done a fine job of capitalizing on that.  Look at Kerry's campaign.  He's been played off the emotion of the disfavor for President Bush while offering very little substance of how that change should happen... now I'm left wondering how we might change that tide?  Or do we even need to change this trend?  Are we perhaps just as well off listening to our emotions, to our gut feeling?