Conformity and Its Challengers
One sentence, cause and reaction
- Mass culture became increasingly homogeneous in the postwar years, inspiring challenges to conformity by artists, intellectuals, and rebellious youth.
- Inspiring makes the challenge a product of homogeneity, not an independent development.
- Three challengers named: artists, intellectuals, and rebellious youth — different resources, one target.
Select all three challengers the CED names.
Different resources, one target.
A sharper claim than 7.7's
- 7.7 said mass media spread a national culture as well as greater awareness of regional cultures — a balanced claim.
- 8.5 says mass culture became increasingly homogeneous, which is the stronger, one-directional version.
- So the CED itself records a change between the periods, and noticing it is a genuine continuity-and-change point.
'Inspiring challenges to conformity' makes the challenge...
The CED's own causal verb.
Why youth is listed separately
- 8.4's baby boom produced an unusually large cohort of young people in the same decades.
- A large cohort with disposable income is a market, and a market can support a culture of its own.
- So the CED's rebellious youth is a demographic fact as much as an attitude, and 8.12's counterculture follows from it.
The dominant culture, a challenger, or the demographic reason?
Sort each element of postwar culture.
Compared with 7.7's claim, 8.5's is...
7.7 balanced national spread against regional awareness.
8.5's claim is stronger than 7.7's, and the CED changed it deliberately. 7.7 said mass media spread a national culture as well as awareness of regional cultures; 8.5 says mass culture became increasingly homogeneous — noticing that shift is a genuine continuity-and-change point.
'Rebellious youth' is a demographic fact because of...
A large cohort with disposable income is a market.
Maintained or challenged, over time
- The objective is how mass culture has been maintained or challenged over time — both verbs.
- Maintained: by the same media, markets and advertising that spread it in 7.7.
- Challenged: by artists, intellectuals and youth here, and by the counterculture and rights movements later.
Select all four parts of a complete culture answer.
Without the fourth you have described a mood, not a change.
Writing a culture question
- Name what the dominant culture was, who challenged it, with what resources, and what the challenge produced.
- The CED gives the first two; 8.12 gives the fourth in the counterculture's greater informality and changes in sexual norms.
- Four parts, and a culture answer without the fourth has described a mood rather than a change.
Give a large generation money and leisure and it will buy something its parents did not. The market that serves it then has a reason to encourage the difference, and rebellion acquires a supply chain.
Mass culture became increasingly homogeneous in the postwar years, inspiring challenges to conformity by artists, intellectuals, and rebellious youth. Inspiring makes the challenge a product of the homogeneity; the claim is stronger than 7.7's balanced one; and 8.4's baby boom makes rebellious youth a demographic fact as well as an attitude.