Karalynn Schneck: On Commercialization

First of all, I am very torn about McKee’s chapter on “commercialization” mainly on the issue of the value of trash culture. Being raised as a lower-middle classed, conservative Christian Caucasian in a quasi-ghetto neighborhood, I realize that there is probably a reason I don’t attribute any value to trash culture. I very much agree with Habermas that educated culture is superior to one that includes vulgar language, the loud playing of raucous music, an addiction to television over books, and an almost complete apathy to socioeconomic and political issues of our day. I disagree that books are only for the educated—there are so many free local library programs and community classes teaching adults and tutoring children in reading, writing, etc. that there is no excuse for people not to learn and understand the value of literature over television. The academic who “argued that for people growing up in working-class cultures, there were forms of informal policing that ensured that they knew that books were not for them” (McKee 91) has obviously forgotten that our nation as a whole has taken great strides to help underprivileged individuals in accessing this “foreign” media. I think that television should not be so trivialized as it is—that it should include accessible information about economics, politics, health care, human rights, sexual education and social issues. After all, McKee states (and I agree with him) that “there’s nothing genetic in any member of either group that forces them to like one kind of culture over another” (McKee 88); So why not value a culture that educates and uplifts the masses, opening up new possibilities and making the American dream more realistically achievable? I think Habermas is right when he says that working-class Americans suffer from “false consciousness,” and I think it is high time they expand their minds and their boundaries. The only reason there culture is the way it is (in my opinion) is because they are stuck in the mindset of the oppressed and impoverished. Yes, life is depressing, and yes oppression exists—but it’s not going to end if working class people whine to each other and then go home and watch TV.