(no subject)
Jan. 2nd, 2003 03:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nollyWhen a generation grows up hearing "ignore them and they'll go away" when they complain about someone else's behavior, further reinforced by the general ineffectualness of authority figures (school adminitrators, teachers, parents) regarding bullying, is it surprising that many of these children become adults who ignore politics?
I'm not saying all adults are always ineffective in the face of peer abuse, or that everyone my age is apolitical. It just struck me today that I have much the same attitude about politics and international conflict as I developed about teasing, etc.: ignore it and get on with life. Made worse because the political stuff rarely has as direct an impact on my life -- Dubya isn't playing keep-away with my umbrella, Osama didn't slap me across the dinner table. I don't think I'm the only one; otherwise, we'd be seeing more 60s-style activism, I think. We (myself and those like me) don't know where to start, or how to have an impact. Writing letters doesn't feel effective -- turning people in to the teacher or pricipal neve made them stop. Why would the politicos listen?
While I know I can have an impact in my communities (which is not the same as my neighborhood or my city), because I am known there, I don't feel that I can affect anything on a national level.
I'm not saying all adults are always ineffective in the face of peer abuse, or that everyone my age is apolitical. It just struck me today that I have much the same attitude about politics and international conflict as I developed about teasing, etc.: ignore it and get on with life. Made worse because the political stuff rarely has as direct an impact on my life -- Dubya isn't playing keep-away with my umbrella, Osama didn't slap me across the dinner table. I don't think I'm the only one; otherwise, we'd be seeing more 60s-style activism, I think. We (myself and those like me) don't know where to start, or how to have an impact. Writing letters doesn't feel effective -- turning people in to the teacher or pricipal neve made them stop. Why would the politicos listen?
While I know I can have an impact in my communities (which is not the same as my neighborhood or my city), because I am known there, I don't feel that I can affect anything on a national level.
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no subject
Date: 2003-01-02 10:07 pm (UTC)I *hate* feeling helpless. But I do.