(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.
no subject
Date: 2003-01-03 10:16 am (UTC)No, but the average person can contribute time/money to organizations that do lobbying, e.g., ACLU. I think the difference between politicial action now and political action back in the 60s is the same as the difference between everything now and back in the 60s. Everything is bigger now, and bigger means more organization and structure, requires more work within the system, and affords less opportunity for individual, outside-the-system action.
It's apathy rooted in individualism.
I think that the notion of individualism is preventing some people from acting (because they feel that helping a large organization doesn't count as making a difference, so they don't do it, and/or because they feel that any organization they would help must 100% reflect their values, which none ever do, so they don't bother or they wander from one organization to another, never quite doing much good at any of them).
I also think the notion of individualism is hiding the actions of others.