Laziness and Apathy

This past week I started back to school.  In one of my classes we were having a discussion over voter turnout in elections.  The students were shocked by the low numbers.  It was a reminder to me that as students get close to voting age, they are often energetic and curious about voting and voicing their opinion.  As a point of reference, you can view historical results HERE. 

Discussing this sparked a question in me related to why the numbers might be so low.  Typically, we hear complaints from people such as;

• The system is rigged against us
• The two party system is not effective
• It doesn't matter who we elect, we always get the same person
• My vote won't matter

All of this creates apathy in citizens.  Moreover. voting and political engagement is not the only area of life where we experience this.  It appears more and more that people are tuning out of various happenings and events.  Have you noticed how hard it is to get volunteers in organizations?  My two children are involved in youth sports, Boy Scouts, church and school events.  On several occasions events have been cancelled due to a lack of support or help to carry out the event.  While I understand we must balance out our time and energy, we must reflect on our priorities and more importantly try to figure out why this is happening.  Why do we care so much about trivial matters when it seems like Rome is burning?

It is difficult to put a finger on the pulse as to why we have become so apathetic and lazy, however, I believe there are a couple of things that contribute to this.  In his book, Weapons of Mass Instruction, the late educator John Taylor Gatto addresses this.  In his opinion, business marketing is, in part, to blame.  How could marketing be to blame for our laziness and apathy?  Well as Gatto explains, the prolonging of childhood through being raised by the television exposes children to marketing.  Day after day children are bombarded with commercials and advertisements for products.  We are not safe as adults either.  According to the advocacy group StopAd, we see up to 5,000 ads or messages per day!  What is the effect of this?  Think of what ads communicate to you as a potential customer.  They are trying to win your favor.  How do they accomplish this?  By earning your trust.  Advertisers, through testimonials, statistics, and psychology persuade you to buy their items.  What role do we play?  Do we conduct research?  Do we test the claims that are made by advertisers?  No way!  We blindly buy in to what we are being sold and then complain when we get mediocre products.  This has certainly contributed to our apathetic attitudes.

Another way in which we have removed ourselves from being engaged is to remain ignorant of what we should know.  Go back to our example of politics.  You don't have to think very hard to imagine the typical "man on the street" interviews with pundits asking people their opinion on political happenings.  What you hear is depressing.  People are exposed as having very little base knowledge of what they believe and why.  Even our so called experts and politicians are often times quiet ignorant of basic knowledge on topics.  Take the topic of gun control.  Whether you are an advocate for protecting gun rights, or you are in favor of laws limiting firearms, one thing is certain; our politicians are clearly ignorant on this topic.  Just this past week Senator Mazie Hirono (HI) appeared on Jake Tapper's The Lead and espoused that we should be doing everything to make automatic weapons illegal.  Assault weapons have been illegal since the  Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994.  But saying this in front of the camera sounds good and how many constituents are going to check that?  My guess; very few.  Moreover, many people do not understand the intent of the 2nd Amendment as it was written into the Constitution.  Try getting your golfing buddy to crack open a history book or research the history of gun ownership.  It's much easier to slap on a "Molon Labe" sticker under a Gadsden flag.  Meanwhile, they cannot explain or tell you the first bit about the meaning and foundation of either symbol.  

If we are to move the needle in this country, it is going to take an involved citizenry.  We need people engaged and involved in real issues, not wrapped up in Hollywood release, the Bachelor or where the next Dollar General is going to be built.  What will it take to get us there?  Hopefully it will happen organically and we will wake up before it is too late!