28. This argument is untenable for two reasons. First, the claim that high-quality ads
are used to promote tow-quality products is unsupported empirically and by common
sense. Second, undue attention by schools to consumerism is unnecessary and
inappropriate, especially for younger students.
Regarding the first reason, empirical evidence does not suggest that high-quality
advertising is used to promote low-quality products. To the contrary, companies that
produce low-quality products seem to resort to low-budget, poor-quality ads, especially
in broadcast media. Firms that take pride in the quality of their products are far more
likely also to produce ads they can be proud of. Furthermore, high-quality products are
more likely to succeed in the marketplace and thereby generate the revenues needed to
ensure high production value in advertising.
As for the second reason, it is not the job of our schools to breed legions of smart
shoppers. Teachers should devote class time to examining the market place of ideas, no
that of consumer goods and services, which students spend sufficient time examining
outside the classroom. Admittedly consumerism and advertising may be appropriate
topics for college-level marketing and psychology courses. However, undue focus on
media and materialism may give younger students a distortedly harrow view of the
world as little more than a flea market. Additionally, revealing the deceptive side of the
advertising business may breed unhealthy cynicism among youngsters, who need
positive messages, not negative ones, during their formative years.
In sum, the premise that high-quality ads tout low-quality products is specious at
best; in any event, for schools to provide extensive training in consumerism would be to
assign them an inappropriate role and to foster in impressionable minds a distortedly
narrow and unhealthy view of the world.