#5 - Columnist: A democratic society cannot exist unless

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Dancingbambarina!

To address answer choice (D), the conclusion of this stimulus is the final sentence: "It is obvious then that widespread reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment has an inherently corrosive effect on democracy." Hopefully when you read the stimulus, you noticed that "widespread reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment" is a new element not mentioned anywhere else in the stimulus other than the conclusion. Since this is an assumption question, you'll want to look for an answer choice that connects that new material in the conclusion to what's in the premises.

With that in mind, a quick skim through the answer choices suggests that (A), (D), and (E) all might be good places to start because all of them mention reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment. Answer choice (D) states, "Relying on movies and electronic media for entertainment generally makes people less likely to participate in groups outside their families." What this does is it connects to a contrapositive of the chain in the administrator's post. It effectively gives us the following:

RMEME PCO

That is, if people rely on movies and electronic media for entertainment, they will be less likely to participate in groups outside the family like civic organizations and political parties. If we have PCO, then we also have SB (i.e., citizens don't establish strong bonds of mutual trust), which in turn leads to DS (i.e., it's not consistent with the existence of a democratic society, or has a harmful, corrosive effect on democracy).

[pandapaws]

I read the explanation for why A doesn't pass the negation test but I am still confused on why it doesn't. If some people who rely on movies and electronic media for entertainment can still form strong bonds of mutual trust with others, then wouldn't that wreck the assumption that widespread reliance on movies and electronic media for entertainment have a corrosive effect on democracy due to not establishing bonds of mutual trust?

[Dana D]

Hey Panda,

To answer your question, no, "some" people being able to rely on electronic media and also form strong bonds with their community does not ruin the author's argument.

You can check this yourself by looking at the most extreme version of "some", which is just one person. This is a necessary assumption question, so if this was truly the assumption the author's entire argument is relying on, then just one person being able to binge Netflix and still have a strong sense of community would ruin the author's argument! But that is not the case here - the author probably agrees that some people can do both - his argument is more generally that as we rely on electronic media more, we are less connected to groups outside the family or civic organiztions, etc., and that has a corrosive effect on society.

Hope that helps!