Parenting Blog

Guest Blog by Dr. Jim Taylor
Author of Your Children Are Under Attack

Listen to Dr. Jim Taylor live on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!

Wednesday November 18
MyExpertSolution.com
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

THE POWER OF AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE

There is no more destructive force in your children’s lives than American popular culture. It promotes the worst values in people, and disguises them all as entertainment. Reality TV, for example, has made the “seven deadly sins”—pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth—attributes to be admired. Throw in selfishness, deceit, spite, and vengeance—all qualities seen and revered in popular culture—and you have the personification of the worst kind of person. American popular culture makes heroic decidedly unheroic values, characters, and behavior.

Most parents realize that popular culture conveys unhealthy messages to their children. For example, in a recent survey conducted by Common Sense Media, three-fourths of parents believed that materialism and the negative influences from television, movies, and music were a “serious problem” in raising children. It further reported that 64 percent of parents believe media content today is inappropriate for children. Over 85 percent of parents believe that marketing contributes to children being too materialistic, sexual content leads children to become sexually active at a younger age, and violent content increases aggressive behavior in children. And sixty-six percent of parents think they could do a better job of supervising their children’s media exposure.

POPULAR CULTURE'S TWO LINES OF ATTACK

American popular culture conveys its values through its many media. Though diverse in its tools of persuasion, popular culture relies on two primary avenues for communicating their messages and influencing your children. The first type of message that popular culture uses is what I call “loudspeaker” messages, in which the messages are deafening, constant, and ever present. The shrillness of these messages can heard, seen, tasted, or felt, and can not be readily avoided. Just driving down the street in most cities, towns, and suburbs exposes children to bright and flashing lights aimed at luring them into stores (where they can buy products they don’t need) and restaurants (where they can eat food that is unhealthy).

The second type of message that American popular culture uses to seduce children are what I call “stealth” messages. These messages are usually hidden behind characters, images, words, and sounds that are fun and engaging, but are designed to subtly tap into children’s unconscious needs and wishes. Messages that create positive emotional reactions, for example, dancing while drinking Pepsi, or winning a basketball game wearing a pair of Nike’s, resonate at a deep and unconscious level with children, causing them to want to feel that way too.

Examples of the unhealthy value messages that American popular culture conveys to your children are ubiquitous. Reality TV, a recent spawn of American popular culture, is currently the hottest property on television. The values communicated on Reality TV are truly destructive. Shows, such as Survivor, encourage deceit, manipulation, back stabbing, and “look out for #1” and “win at all costs” attitudes. Reality shows, such as American Idol and The Weakest Link, though ostensibly about achieving the American Dream of wealth and fame, places great emphasis on the rejection and humiliation of its losing contestants.

Video games, such as Grand Theft Auto and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, aggrandize criminal behavior, stereotyping, violence, and murder without consequences. Grand Theft Auto III: Vice City, exemplifies the kinds of lessons violent video games teach children. “This phenomenally popular video game allows you to hijack cars, shoot cops, kill women with baseball bats, have sex with prostitutes (and then kill them too)…In this game, you don’t kill the bad guy, you’re the bad guy,” writes the New York Times Magazine’s Jonathan Dee, “…it therefore seems undeniable that video games, compared to other forms of entertainment, are disproportionately concerned with violence.”

BATTLE LINES ARE DRAWN

The only chance your children have in winning the war against American popular culture is if you take sides with them. Use your power to protect them from the hypnotic allure of popular culture’s damaging values, beliefs, and attitudes. An essential part being their ally is to know your enemy. American popular culture is a master of disguise that can slip through your defenses and attack your children without you or they realizing it. Popular culture is also a massive and unrelenting force that can overwhelm your defenses and reach your children before you can regroup.

The healthy value messages that you communicate to your children protect them against American popular culture. Every message that you convey that emphasizes the values you want your children to live by gives them the values and perspectives that will enable them to see popular culture for what it is, what it believes, what it wants from them, and how it can harm them.

Good values and healthy messages aren’t enough in the face of American popular culture’s constant and concentrated assault on your children. It’s easy to get worn down by American popular culture, lose hope, and surrender to its the unflagging assaults. You must have a deep and resilient conviction in doing whatever is necessary to safeguard your children. This resolve is necessary because popular culture never rests and neither can you. You must become your children’s allies who they know will stand by them in the siege.

WAGING THE WAR

One of the most common themes in science fiction and fantasy movies and video games is that of a monumental threat to the future of humankind from alien or inhuman armies. The goal of these dark forces is to enslave or destroy the human race. This genre of entertainment is also a metaphor for what American popular culture is trying to do your family. Like the Terminator, popular culture is programmed to do one thing—destroy human life as we know it (okay, perhaps that is a bit melodramatic, but you get the idea)—and, every time it gets knocked down, the Terminator—and popular culture—gathers itself and keeps right on coming. Popular culture is also like the Orcs of the film, The Lord of the Rings. There seems to be an unending supply of popular culture’s foot soldiers—television, movies, music, magazines, advertisements—with which to attack your children. For every one that is destroyed, ten more seem rise out of the earth and join the battle against your children.

Yet, an important lesson can be learned using these two popular culture staples: that ordinary beings have the power to turn back overwhelming threats to our way of life and emerge victorious. What enabled the humans and hobbits, respectively, to triumph over their threats to humankind, and what will allow you to protect your children and overcome popular culture, is a deep conviction in what is right, an unerring commitment to their values, perseverance in the face of unimaginable odds, and a dogged determination to defeat their enemy.

RESPECT

Professional athletes are revered in American popular culture. Children want to be like their sports heroes. They put their heroes’ posters on their bedroom walls, wear their jerseys, and try to copy their athletic moves. Because of this influence on children, they are highly vulnerable to what athletes say and how they behave. What messages do acts of celebration convey to your children? One message is that they should celebrate for simply doing their job. Can you imagine a college professor doing a “touchdown dance” after giving a particularly good lecture? Or can you envision an auto mechanic taunting fellow mechanics after diagnosing and repairing a car problem? How about a ten-year-old doing the “Icky Shuffle” (a celebratory dance by the former NFL running back, Icky Woods) if he won a spelling bee? It sounds ridiculous and such behavior would never be tolerated in the “real” world. Yet this behavior is not only accepted, but admired, in the world of sports.

What lies at the heart at these messages is a profound lack of respect. These celebrations have the more powerful effect of demeaning the opposition. Beyond the diminution of their opponents, this behavior is disrespectful to the celebrating athletes themselves (though they obviously don’t see it that way), to the fans who come to see quality athletic performances (though admittedly many enjoy the antics as well) and to the sport itself (though league officials only take token steps to stop such behavior). And this disrespect isn’t limited to sports. It can be found, in some form, in popular music (e.g., hard rock and hip hop), on television and radio talk shows (e.g., Jerry Springer and Don Imus), and in politics (e.g., negative campaign ads).

RESPONSIBILITY

Our country was built on commitment, self-initiative, and perseverance. The American Dream was about working hard, making sacrifices, and creating a better life for your children than the life you might have had. People put in their time and did what was needed to be done. America was also about taking responsibility. If mistakes were made, people accepted culpability and did what they had to do to correct the situation. By accepting responsibility, people knew that they had greater control over their lives and that getting ahead was in their hands rather than being left to chance.

Times have certainly changed. America is now about avoiding responsibility. Many children these days want everything handled to them. They don’t want to have to work for it or earn what they get. Many children think that life should be easy and all good things should come to them just for being who they are. Lou Holtz, the well-known football coach who has coached for over 40 years, once said, “When I first started coaching, athletes talked about accountability and responsibility. Now they talk about rights and entitlement.” Children used to be grateful for the opportunities they were given. They appreciated how fortunate they were. Not any longer. Many children expect things to be given to them. It’s their right to get everything they want and they’re entitled to the very best of everything.

SUCCESS

It’s the American Dream: Success! America: Land of opportunity. The rags to riches story. The kid in the mailroom who works his way up to the boardroom. The ability of anyone willing to work to achieve success is the foundation on which our country is built. Men, such as Ken Lay and Jack Welch are, in many ways, exemplars of the American Dream; hard working, self-made, hugely successful. Yet they also epitomize the American Dream gone bad, where more than enough is not enough, where perspective is lost and greed and excess rule. In 1887, Lord Acton observed, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” His words are just as relevant today.

Certainly, success is one of the most desirable and sought-after objectives in America today. Success is a powerful statement about who people are, what they value, and their commitment and hard work. It can foster a life full of meaning, satisfaction, and joy. Sadly, the pursuit of success can also lead to a life of frustration, disappointment, and unfulfilled dreams. Whether your children realize the success you envision for them or crumble under the weight of pursuing an unattainable image of success depends on the values you attach to success and the dream of success you create from your values.

HAPPINESS

Is there anything more decidedly American than the pursuit of happiness—it’s even in the Declaration of Independence? Is there anything that we devote more time, effort, and money to than attempting to achieve that elusive goal? And is there anything that we pursue with such vigor and yet with such poor results than our pursuit of happiness?

Happiness is, at the same time, the most desired of human conditions, yet one that is neither understood nor fully valued by most members of American society. One would assume that the increase in wealth and all of the advances that have been made over the last 50 years would have made people happier. But that assumption is painfully incorrect. If the growing rates of depression, violence, divorce, and suicide are any indications, Americans are less happy than any time in our past.

FAMILY

American popular culture wants to destroy your family. With your family in ruins, it can more easily shape your children in a form of its own choosing that fulfills its own needs rather than your children’s. Popular culture can take over as the dominant force in your children’s lives and instill in them the values that it wants them to have, not ones that are best for your children.

So American popular culture convinces you to push your children maniacally to excel in every aspect of their lives, to over schedule them, to plan weekend soccer tournaments in distant cities, to eat fast-food dinners between activities, give children unfettered access to video games, DVD’s, and television, and have no free time for your family. Is this road good for you and your family? Clearly not. Does it feel like this road has no exits? Probably so. So who benefits from such an unhealthy family? Isn’t it obvious, American popular culture. The busier and more stressed out you and your family are, the more you’ll turn to popular culture for convenience and relief. And for American popular culture, it’s all money in the bank—at your expense!

COMPASSION

From the simple act of not sharing toys in the playground to bullying by boys and girls alike to widespread corruption in the boardrooms of corporate America to police brutality, there is an epidemic of coldness in America today. For a variety of reasons ranging from economic need (“I gotta get mine while I can.”) to a decay in values (“Nobody cares about anything anymore.”) to a decline of the nuclear family (“What do you mean you’re getting divorced.”) to the migration away from the communities in which we were raised (“My pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow.”), an increasing segment of America seems to be driven overwhelmingly by selfishness and callousness, as opposed to social interest. This wanton disregard for others has caused many in our society to lose their compassion for others.

Some observers thought that the events of September 11, 2001 would change all that. The tragic attacks, they argued, would have a sobering effect on people; pull America together, put life in perspective, and elicit a never-before-seen concern for others. And there was change for a while. American flags were flying everywhere. People were helping each other cope with the national grief. Attendance at houses of worship rose dramatically. Charitable donations for the victims poured in in staggering amounts. Even America’s political parties set aside partisan bickering and pulled together to pass laws that were intended to help all Americans. Sadly, the new-found compassion was short lived. Since the terrorist attacks, life in America has returned to business as usual. American flags, like other popular trends, are rarely seen now. Religious observance has returned to previous levels. More examples of corporation greed emerge weekly. And, of course, it’s politics as usual in our nation’s capital.

A NEW AMERICAN VALUE CULTURE

Raising your children with healthy values is not just about resisting American popular culture, but also creating a new “American value culture” with which to replace it. A new American value culture is grounded in and driven by life-affirming values on which this country was founded, but, sadly, has lost sight of in the last several decades. Examples include integrity, accountability, hard work, kindness, fairness, primary concern for children, and a fundamental emphasis on always acting in the public interest. An American value culture identifies, highlights, and pursues values, goals, interests, and priorities that reflect the highest common denominator of American society, not the lowest. It involves persuading families, schools, houses of worship, big business, and local, state, and federal governments to return their priorities to those that care deeply for children. An American value culture is devoted to creating an environment that places your children’s needs and best interests ahead of all else.

Much like the suffragist movement of the early 1900’s and the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, starting a revolution against popular culture and replacing it with a new American value culture has to begin at a grassroots level; in families, schools, houses of worship, neighborhoods, and communities. You must recognize that America is heading down a bad road that can only lead our children—and our society—to a disastrous end. If you join the resistance, and with other converts, an army willing and capable of fighting against American popular culture and for an American value culture will grow. As this groundswell builds, resistance to and repudiation of popular culture will also increase. Over time, the tide will turn against American popular culture and, just as it has for past movements, the values of a new American value culture will emerge victorious.