In the article “The Old Grey Mare, She Misses What Used to be”, Shelly Fralic argues that cultural change is the main source of the challenges experienced within populations. She laments that there is a lot of confusion in the current society attributable to the human factors that are self-imposed in numerous instances.
In his thesis, he assumes that inconsistency of the events in the current generation makes life distasteful (Fralic, 2012). To some extent, Shelly Fralic perceives her cries as natural, since it is a habit of the elderly to lament whenever there is a change in the society. The author adds that the recent happenings on the media clearly illustrate why cultural change fails to benefit the society. Evidently, the author states that technology makes things move fast compared to the past when people were composed.
Fralic (2012) uses a case where inventions such as twitter and face book have revolutionized the presentation of news. Fralic (2012) acknowledges that some of the issues brought to the public domain are insignificant unlike in the past. I agree with some of the conclusions since it is apparent that the world is experiencing rapid technological and cultural changes (Toulmin, 2003). From my own experience, I am always puzzled by the level of control media has on our lives.
Usually, we are swayed by the societal trends since we shun the long-term effects. From the news events that she explains, it is apparent that changes are drastic in the contemporary times. The author affirms this by stating in a biased way that “Tweetosphere is causing there cerebra to constrict tighter than sumo wresters arteries” (Toulmin, 2003).
However, I disagree with Fralic when she sums up that technology has killed creativity and civility. Evidently, media has not only brought about challenges to the society but it has also led to benefits such as global interaction. People can update themselves on the happenings in different places in real time.
The author uses the word crotchety to refer to the signs of old age. This biased language gives a clear picture of how the author perceives the aged (Jackendoff, 2002). In the article, Fralic uses figurative language in highlighting that humanity cannot survive based on processes affecting the society.
However, survival often takes shape regardless of the challenges in the society. Some of the author’s information is biased since she uses information from the blog when describing the news when young Texas parents achieved their fete by presenting useless information to the public.
The author missed the point by stating that this is the best time to lament. Ironically, he states that life is presently better than it was in the past. Interestingly, she highlights of the story of Joseph Kony and then he concludes that society has lost interest in its discussion (Fralic, 2012).
In this case, the author is being subjective in his statements. Moreover, giving news less time is not sufficient to enhance critical thinking according to Fralic. Lastly, the author refers to the society as a Chicken McNuggets world, not knowing that to some this might convey a positive meaning instead of what he intended to portray. It is obvious that the author is nostalgic of the past from her lamentations (Linell, 2005). From the article, it is true that other constituents of the society are experiencing allegations similar to those of the authors.
References
Fralic, S. (2012). The old grey mare, she misses what used to be. The Vancouver sun.
Jackendoff, R. (2002). Foundations of language: How language connects to the brain, the world, evolution, and thinking. New York, NY: Oxford University Pr
Linell, P. (2005). The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins And Transformations. New York, NY: Routledge
Toulmin, S. E. (2003). The uses of argument. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.