We are not about to try to deny that Ragashanti Live, the popular talk show that Dr Kingsley ‘Ragashanti’ Stewart used to host on NewsTalk 93FM, represented a significant, albeit unenviable, aspect of our culture.

Yes, sadly, there is in our society, a rather unfortunate streak that has manifested itself in a dangerous potpourri of antisocial behaviour.

Said behaviour is at the root of the increasing crime rate that has all but overwhelmed us in recent years.

The murders, the rapes, the instances of carnal abuse, the teenage pregnancies… most if not all have their genesis in what Dr Stewart dubbed ‘mix up’.

Why anyone would want to glorify and wallow in this particular phenomenon in the name of culture or anything else is beyond us.

However, as Dr Stewart’s ratings proved, many people fell in love with the idea of airing their dirty linen — day in, day out — on the airwaves.

According to the estimate quoted by Dr Stewart in yesterday’s edition, the show raked in over $70 million between 2008 and now.

That’s nothing to sneeze at within the context of the current global economic crunch. However, it doesn’t follow that a radio station, which purports to be representative of the region’s premier university, can afford — in the name of money, ratings, cultural democracy or anything else — to hold its nose above what we deem to be undiluted slackness.

As a doctor of anthropology, Dr Stewart understood, perhaps better than most, why many of us behave the way we do.

He therefore could have used that knowledge on the platform which he was so privileged to have occupied to lift the mass of dullards who patronised his offerings from the social abyss which inspired them to glorify the unseemly.

The tambourines which he beat so vigorously in support of the poor women whose vision was eternally blighted by the belief that their most valuable asset lay between their legs as opposed to their ears, could have been used to celebrate so many other uplifting aspects of our culture.

Why, we wonder, did he too often dive for the lowest common denominator?

Is it that he truly believed that his brand of entertainment represented the best way forward for the country?

Or did he just not care?

Was he pandering to the will of the commercial interests which buoyed his show?

Or was it the other way around?

Either way, we believe that Wednesday’s decision by the owners of NewsTalk 93FM to pull the plug on Ragashanti Live was in the best interest of everyone, including Dr Stewart who had sent in his resignation hours earlier.

We suspect that we have not heard the last of Dr Stewart, who we know is capable of better.

However, we sincerely hope that by the time his next performance comes around, he will — in his own words — have sorted himself out.