consumerism
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Children are neither black tablets nor budding plants. They are markets; that is to say, consumers whose needs for products roughly the same as the needs of adults… The point is that childhood, if it can be said to exist at all, is now an economic category. There is very little the culture wants to do for their children except to make them into consumers.
Neil Postman -
Commercial television adds to the Decalogue several impious commandments, among them that thou shalt have no other gods than consumption, thou shalt despise what is old, thou shalt seek to amuse thyself continuously, and thou shalt avoid complexity like the ten plagues that afflicted Egypt.
Neil Postman -
The question is not, Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance? The answer to this question has nothing whatever to do with computers, with testing, with teacher accountability, with class size, and with other details of managing schools. The right answer depends on two things and two things alone: the existence of shared narratives and the capacity of such narratives to provide and inspired reason for schooling.
Neil Postman