The enthusiastic acceptance of ascetic lifestyles evidenced in the surviving writings of monastic authors indicates that medieval societies were much less concerned with monetary gain than are contemporary Western cultures. The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument ['inserts personal opinions into what purports to be a factual debate', 'employs the imprecise term "ascetic"', 'generalizes from a sample that is likely to be unrepresentative', 'applies contemporary standards inappropriately to medieval societies']