Evaluation of "Popular Culture and Family" from Everyday Arguments

¶ … Third Edition, written Katherine J. Mayberry. The Cultural Morals

Upon initially evaluating Kenneth A. Myers' essay, "Popular Culture and the Family: How Mass Mediated Culture Weakens the Ties That Bind," which appears in Katherine J. Mayberry's anthology entitled Everyday Arguments, it becomes readily apparent that the author appears to have a vested interest in this particular topic. The point of Myers' essay is to largely demonstrate to the reader that one of the most eminent reasons for the dissolution of the moral fiber within the family structure today can be the emergence of popular culture and its subversive impact upon varying family members -- particularly the youth. In this regard, the author certainly makes his point-of-view known on this subject, while the conviction with which he posits this point-of-view is largely without question. The author's conviction and unswerving belief in that which he argues is certainly one of the strengths of this essay, for the simple fact that there is, in all likelihood, a great deal of truth in his particular stance on this issue.

Another particular area of fortitude which this essay is based upon revolves around the fact that Myers defines and compares traditional culture, which he claims was largely family based, and its effects against those of popular culture (although the latter term is never explicitly defined in this work). In doing so he is able to amass a substantial amount of evidence in his favor, which may be found in his frequent usage of quotations of representatives of traditional culture which include a number of noted authors. Furthermore, he structures his argument about a calculated enumeration of the deleterious effects of popular culture to be found upon the modern family structure and its mores. Such effects include a decline of traditional values, austerity, as well as the loss of significant authority figures which both symbolize and reinforce the virtuous nature of morals. In both of these respects it may be asserted that the author invokes a substantial amount of evidence that comes from a fairly variegated body of sources, most of which aids in his primary conviction.

However, "Popular Culture And the Family: How Mass Mediated Culture Weakens The Ties That Bind" loses some of its conviction due to a number of fairly noteworthy facts, the first of which is that the phenomenon of popular culture is merely alluded to and never clearly defined, which would have helped to have instituted a ready comparison with the author's definition of primary culture. Furthermore, the author's arguments are founded upon a number of sweeping statements that can be widely categorized as generalizations, and which predominantly rest upon the recognition or the degree of deference attributed to the named authors he invokes while illustrating such points. Furthermore, it should be noted that while the author does utilize evidence to substantiate some of his points, he also makes a number of points where the relationship between the evidence and the larger message they have been cited to prove are decidedly ambiguous, so that is appears he is leaving gaps in his logic while drawing conclusions. For instance, his assertion that popular culture is responsible for the lack of depth of moral austerity is hardly something that can be proven -- a lack of depth of morals is something that comes from and is manifest within individual people, not from a television show or commercial.