Yes. It exists. This dispute is over whether or not it is harmful. You haven't yet provided one iota of evidence that it does what you say it does.
> > also, so what if someone lets their kid watch MTV?
>
>Then that person is making a moderate mistake, unless the kid is old enough.
>I'd say that's somewhere around 14-16. Are you saying nobody gets to
>criticize another person's parenting?
Not on this list. No one has any business because no one knows how the other person actually parents. Furthermore, it has ZERO to do with whether your/my/doug's/Max's/whoever's argument stands or falls.
You say that people should sympathize (and I agree with your comments about empathy, etc), imagining they have children. You ask this because you are certain that any right-minded person would agree that MTV has to be bad for 11 year olds. Rubbish. It's moralizing bullshit designed to suggest that anyone who disagrees with you can't possibly have the interests of children in mind.
If you have evidence that MTV damages children--and telling me to watch MTV is not evidence--then I'll consider it. Evidence would be empirical research we can actually examine, together. Evidence would be illustration. Do you have examples of children stunted by exposure to MTV? Like Christian, I haven't seen any evidence of that in my interactions with Testosterone Central, my students, and the children of family and friends.
And even if you pony up with evidence of the unambiguously negative effects of MTV on children, we still have the other issue: what is to be done. On that, no doubt we'll continue to disagree. Which is to say, go ahead and criticize it with real arguments all you want. I have plenty of things to say about the poverty of contemporary media products and no doubt Doug and others here do as well. But, frankly, spending money on developing alternative media so kids have something else to watch besides MTV when you can throw out your TV if you feel that strongly seems a bit much. Not simply because I think there are far more pressing things to spend monies on (in the here and now), but also because I don't think I'd want any state sponsored committee composed of Ghu knows who coming up with "healthy" stuff for the sonshine to watch. Feh. Shudder. I mean, imagine a committee composed of the five people on this list that raise your short hairs the most. Would you want THEM creating anything for your kid!? Shudder!
Kelley
Kelley