Political Apathy

[sirz345]

My biggest issue with modern society is our collective apathy towards political issues, especially in the younger generation with the greatest example being the unwillingness to vote. Culturally, we have treated political activism as "extremist" and those who do push their political opinions and treated as jokes and overly optimistic children; we essentially shut down our youth's desire to voice their political opinions from a young age.

The reason behind this is simple: a conscious population does not tolerate the status quo, an unconscious one does as its told, shrugs its shoulders and says "at least I don't have it worse." We've honestly come to a point in our society that totalitarians and absolute monarchs DREAMED of! A population where only the wealthy and elite hold power and everyone else is perfectly fine with being owned, screwed and swindled. My question to you guys, how do we solve this ongoing problem with our society?

Currently I have no idea how to solve this problem, most people refuse to acknowledge their situation could be much better.

[PhoenixAsh]

Ok. How does willingness to vote for parties perpetuating the status quo equate in there?

[Zoop]

Political apathy is perfectly understandable. When you're screwed over constantly by those in power, you're bound to detach yourself from the farce and the shit storm that is contemporary politics.

The point is to turn that indifference into hope by educating people and raising awareness of the fact that a better world is possible.

[Bala Perdida]

I wish they were apathetic to the point of not caring what the fuck you say, and letting us do whatever we want. Once you get to the cultural and social aspects of the system you see that society is brought up in a reactionary fashion. Fucking liberals, centrists, moderate leftists and shit are some of the worst offenders I know when it comes to collaborating with the system. Actively preaching dependency on the system through changes in law, voting, or defending capitalism in measure of privilege and showing absolutely no remorse for people exploited in the 3rd world. Not to mention it's one of the most disturbingly unconscious racist, sexist, and classist sectors. Treating their bigoted attitudes as 'layed back jokes' and calling anyone who tells them to knock that shit off 'uptight'. Still, even they are to apathetic to actually do anything beyond simply perpetuating capitalism by simply buying into it's culture. In the event of a crisis, revolution, uprising or whatever they're not gonna try to stop it. Who knows if they'll even notice it. Eventually they'll just assimilate into that. The worst is the peaceful activist types who defend the system, even by force, in hopes of gaining publicity for themselves or having a better image or worst of all, actually disagreeing with some of the core values of the uprising.

So fuck it if they don't want to vote or don't give a shit, they're not gonna be appealed to. Not without a pretty face. Honestly, those types can go fuck themselves. We'll see how they do when the fire comes to them, if ever.

[Jimmie Higgins]

My biggest issue with modern society is our collective apathy towards political issues, especially in the younger generation with the greatest example being the unwillingness to vote. Culturally, we have treated political activism as "extremist" and those who do push their political opinions and treated as jokes and overly optimistic children; we essentially shut down our youth's desire to voice their political opinions from a young age.

The reason behind this is simple: a conscious population does not tolerate the status quo, an unconscious one does as its told, shrugs its shoulders and says "at least I don't have it worse." We've honestly come to a point in our society that totalitarians and absolute monarchs DREAMED of! A population where only the wealthy and elite hold power and everyone else is perfectly fine with being owned, screwed and swindled. My question to you guys, how do we solve this ongoing problem with our society?

Currently I have no idea how to solve this problem, most people refuse to acknowledge their situation could be much better.

I wouldn't really consider this as being apathy, more just being beaten down and feeling powerless.

I don't really have an issue if people don't want to vote because they see no point in it. But - in the US at least - there's also a cynical but heavy pressure to vote among people in unions, community organizations, NGOs etc. Activists who might fight against the war (and feel strongly about it) community activists fighting gentrification, etc turn around and argue to vote for Obama and Hilary (or whatever local Democrat is running for mayor in a city) even when the actions and politics of these Democrats promise to add more cops to the streets, to "defend the homeland" and argue that neoliberal policies are they only way to deal with poverty and job-loss.

It's two sides of the same coin. People either think, well nothing will come of it and don't vote or they campaign for politicians they don't fundamentally agree with because maybe the lesser-evil will not be so evil.

Activism in the US has largely failed to do two things which would make it a more apparent option: it fails to offer immediate benefits to workers and the poor (meaningful reforms brought forth through actions by those involved) and argue for a larger, independent, vision.

At best US activism has offered one or the other. Some reforms can be won, but they are undercut by unions or liberal groups who want to cut deals or see the point of actions to pressure or appeal to rulers and political elites. Things like Occupy offered a greater vision and independence, but then undercut themselves in the eyes of non-activist workers by not having any way of actually demanding changes which would demonstrate the effectiveness of actually going out an organizing for many workers or oppressed people. Reforms can make life easier for workers, but if they aren't independent then they just lead back to the same place. Ideals and vision can be inspiring for a time, but then you have to go back to work and deal with the realities of capitalism.

I don't know if there are any easy fixes for this - and I don't think there is one. Workers have to struggle to make any improvements, but it takes independent demands and vision to achieve this. Vision needs to achieve organization and results in order to become a viable option for most (over-worked and under-resourced) people. So in the US at least, it will probably require smaller struggles that gain ground and maintain independance and can begin to generalize (in other words people see this as the way to win broadly, not just for this or that individual struggle or issue).

[Rafiq]

One shouldn't buy into the notion that passivity and apathy are definitive of our present epoch. The point is that the grievances and ills of working people are regularly curtailed and affirmatively dislocated. You want to know which demographic, above all in my experience, complains about the minimum wage? It is the working class, by in part. You want to know which demographic, by in part, complains about 'welfare bums'? Again, largely those of working class background.

The stark, huge increase in Fascism in Europe, and the growing reaction in the United States signifies above all that the Left has failed. The opportunity has been there. It remains. We have failed to seize it.

[Tim Redd]

The stark, huge increase in Fascism in Europe, and the growing reaction in the United States signifies above all that the Left has failed. The opportunity has been there. It remains. We have failed to seize it.

But it ain't all the fault of the leftists. Capitalism has a super powerful ideological apparatus and its being 24/7 to combat left progressive views. Leftists need and continue to Create Public Opinion (CPO) to educate the masses, but the results are not always due to failure by the left.