Self-study
Columnist: Support A democratic society cannot exist unless its citizens have established strong bonds of mutual trust. ████ █████ ███ ██████ ███ ████████████ ████ ██ █████████████ ██ █████ ██████████████ █████████ ████████ ███ █████ ██████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ███ ██ ██████████ █████████ ██████ ██ ██████████
Summary
The author concludes that widespread reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment hurts democracy.
Why?
Because in order to have a democratic society, people need strong bonds of mutual trust. And these bonds are made and strengthened only by participating in organizations and groups outside the family.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that widrespread reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment discourages people from participating in organizations and groups outside the family.
5.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████████ ████████ ████████
a
Anyone who relies ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ █ ██████ ████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ █ ████████
Too extreme to be necessary. The author doesn’t have to assume that “any” individual person who relies on movies/electronic media for entertainment is “unable” to form strong bonds of trust with with another citizen. All the author must believe is that, when considering society as a whole, widespread reliance on movies/electronic media for entertainment will lead to fewer strong bonds of trust. But not every individual person who relies on movies/electronic media needs to be affected.
b
Civic organizations cannot ████████ ███████ █████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████ ██████
Not necessary, because even if civic organizations can advance their goals using electronic media, the argument concerns what happens when people generally rely on electronic media for entertainment. The author never argued that electronic media cannot help organizations reach their goals.
c
Newspapers and other █████ ██ █████ █████ ███████████ ██████ ████ ███████ ██████████ █████████████
The argument never makes any claims about print media and never compares print media to electronic media.
d
Relying on movies ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████████ █████████ █████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ██ ██████ ███████ █████ █████████
Necessary, because if it were not true — if relying on movies and electronic media for entertainment does NOT generally make people less likely to participate in outside groups — then we have no reason to think widespread reliance on movies/electronic media for entertainment would reduce bonds of trust. We would have no reason to think participation in outside groups would be less likely as a result of the widespread reliance.
e
People who rely ██ ██████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████ ████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ████
Not necessary, because the argument concerns strong bonds of mutual trust between citizens, and what is more or less conducive to those bonds. But we have no reason to think that people being “closer to their families” is at all related to bonds of trust between citizens.