Beyond Feelings - Vincent Ruggiero.original_ [1]
To provide all that information would be quite a chore. But suppose the questioner was still curious, and now asked, "How did you get the way you are?" if your patience were not yet exhausted, chances are you'd answer something like this: "I'm that way because I choose to be, because I've considered other sentiments and preferences and attitudes and made my selection. The ones I chose fit my style and personality best." That answer is a natural enough one, and in part it's true. But in a larger sense it's not true. The impact of the world on all of us is much greater than we usually realize.
INFLUENCES ON IDENTITY
You are not only a member of a particular species, Homo sapiens, but you exist at a particular moment in the history of the species. Being a young adult today is quite different from being a young adult thirty years ago, and very different from being a young adult in 1500 or 10,000 B.C. The world's state of progress differs, and likewise its knowledge and beliefs and values. The opportunities for learning and working and relaxing are not the same. So people's daily thoughts and actions vary.
Variations in place and circumstance also can make a difference. If you're from a large city, the odds are you look at many things differently from someone in the country. A person raised for eighteen years in New York City or Los Angeles who goes to college in a town of 3,000 will find the experience difficult. So will a person raised on an isolated farm. But probably for opposite reasons!
If you are an American sports enthusiast, you're probably interested in football, baseball, or basketball. But if you were Chinese, you'd be much more familiar with and excited about ping-pong, and if you were European, soccer. If your father is an automobile mechanic, you undoubtedly know more about cars than does the average person. If you mother is a teacher, you'll tend have a somewhat different perspective on school and teachers than do other students.
In much the same way, all the details about your family very likely have some bearing on who you are. Their religion, race, national origin, political affiliation, economic level, attitudes towards one another, all have made some contribution to your identity.
Of course, people may reject what they are taught at home. People between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one often have sharp and apparently permanent differences with their parents in terms of beliefs and values on many issues. Still, whether you accept or reject what you are taught, your present position grows out of those teachings. It is a response to your upbringing. Given different parents with a different culture and different values – growing up, say, in Istanbul rather than Dubuque – your response would necessarily be different. You would, in that sense, not be the same person.
THE ROLE OF MASS CULTURE
In centuries past, the influence of family and teachers was the dominant, and sometimes the only, influence on children. Today, however, the influence exerted by mass culture (but broadcast media, newspapers, magazines and popular music) is often greater.
By age eighteen the average teenager has spent 11,000 hours in the classroom and 22,000 hours in front of the television set. He or she has done perhaps 13,000 school lessons, yet has watched more than 750,000 commercials.
What effects does mass culture have on young people (and many adults, as well)? To answer, we need only consider the formats and devices commonly used. Modern advertising typically bombards the public with slogans and testimonials by celebrities. This approach is designed to appeal to emotions and create artificial needs for products and services. As a result, many people develop the habit of responding emotionally, impulsively, and gullibly to such appeals.
Television programmers use frequent scene shifts and sensory appeals such as car crashes, violence, and sexual encounters to keep audience interest from diminishing. Then they add frequent