Cultural ethos of a society inevitably change over time. What is
the best way to understand contemporary culture of a scoiety? Many people think that analyzing the trends of its youth is the most effective
way to feel the pulse of contemporary culture. I do not agree with this
argument. I believe that trends of a representative section of the society
needs to be analyzed, and not one subgroup alone while one attempts to characterize contemporary culture.
A society is composed of not just
the youth, but the members of varying age groups from infancy to adulthood. In order to get a feel for the contemporary
culture of the society, the trends in all these age groups, over a time period needs to be analyzed. Just analyzing the youth,
leaving the children, middle aged and elderly
aside, may give a skewed perception of the cultural milieu. For example, to
know what’s in vogue in the world of fiction, examining the books that the
youth focus on will not be reflective of the society as a whole; one needs to
look at the market trends in books sold to all age groups and not just popular
young adult fiction or whatever is popular among the youth. About clothing and
accessories, the style that the youth prefers may not be in line with what the 40
and 50 year old ladies opt for. Same is
the case in music. Just because Justin Bieber is a sensation among a subset of the
society, other similar sized or larger subsets may not share their views. The movies that the youth go to may be a
totally different genre when compared to the ones popular amongst younger
children. Similar cases can be found out in virtually any field that on examine
when one tries to understand the contemporary culture.
In summary, I believe that most
effective way to understand contemporary culture is to analyze trends in a representative
sample of the society, consisting of different age, race, gender and socioeconomic
status. Just analysing the youth’s trend
may be easy, but it may give a skewed version of contemporary culture.
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