The American Dream: A Can of Coke and a Lexus :: Argumentative Argument Media Papers

The American Dream A Can of Coke and a Lexus succeeding(a) the crowd in 2001 is the American way. Our lives necessitate been infected with directions on who, how, and what we should be and do. Every day our televisions blare out talk shows, sitcoms, and soap operas to idle our minds. Our radios scream obscenities and false hopes with a beat that permeates our thoughts. Magazines, newspapers, billboards, televisions, and radios continually tell us what we need and want. Fashion dictates the way we dress, what styles we wear, and even the food we eat. We must arrive rigid exercise routines in expensive gymnasiums, drive only the outgo automobiles, and buy only certain brands of products for our families to consume. The media constantly inundates our subconscious with messages that instruct us how to behave, what to say, and gives directions on what is necessary to be accepted in the elite internal conjunction that we perceive to be the American dream. This is the educatio n we get from the earth around us.Where has this propaganda come from? Why are we not able to enter the forest for the trees? Why do we accept all that is handed to us without questioning the motives? We have been led to believe that they are always right. We have been taught to fear our own judgment, to accept life without question. Such programming begins at birth, is exemplified by our elementary education, and snowballs as we continue to learn. We are a society of sheep, waiting for slaughter. Paulo Freire describes this kind of education in his essay The Banking Concept of rearing asEducation thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories, and the instructor is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqus and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the banking concept of education, in which the range of a function of action allowed to the students extends only as fa r as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits. (349) Schooling in American society has become a process of transferring a pre-arranged come in of information to our children. It begins around age five and continues through the late teens, or until the students have successfully completed the courses required of them. Teachers force-feed a curriculum determined by the state, the county school board, and the school itself.