- Lack of interest or concern, especially regarding matters of general importance or appeal; indifference.
- Lack of emotion or feeling; impassiveness.
I never understood about people being apathetic about politics and the gahmen being worried about it until I had a chat with T (just now).
I told him about the mrbrown incident and I got rather agitated because he seemed to have no opinion and, in an indirect way, stated that it doesn't concern him. He said that unless he feels strongly about a topic, he wouldn't bother.
His reasons for not bothering
- There are more important things to worry about like family
- He is only 1 person what can he do
- He has been living with it for so long
I realised that that would be the typical answers to why people are apathetic. So I thought I'd dissect these 3 points.
- There are more important things to worry about
Yup, I totally agree with this. If you don't have enough money to feed your family or even have a roof over your head, these things would be the most important things. Then again, it has been the poor and middle class to have made changes in policies throughout the history of the world. I'm not saying that being interested in politics you would make that your first worry and take each and every action by the gahmen as a battle to be fought. No! Being interested in politics would mean that you know about what is happening politically and have an opinion. There is no right and wrong as it is an opinion. Furthermore, it doesn't mean that if you feel strongly about a policy or an action that you should gather up the masses and hold a rally or anything to that extent. Change and political awareness comes with educating. Telling friends and family why a policy or action is not right and listening to their take on it and allowing their points of view to blend in with yours so that you either have a clearer picture why it is wrong or you might change your mind. - Being only 1 person what difference would it make
It is very logical, but the thing is this, if you are a person in a sea of people who believe in the same things you do or at least believe in the same way on a particular topic, you become not just 1 person. Your 1 voice is now much louder. That is the attitude a lot of people take when it comes to voting, “What difference would 1 vote make?” Lots, as countries who have gone though problems would tell you. The easiest example is the US elections. Lots of Americans didn't register to vote because they had the attitude that their 1 vote didn't matter and when these people were polled as to how they would vote if they registered, majority of them (70% if I'm not wrong) said that they would have voted for John Kerry. So in the end, the “1 vote doesn't matter” because hundreds of thousands of votes that mattered.
Also there have been people throughout history who changed the world. Ghandi, Mother Teresa are the 2 most prominent ones of recent times. Just 1 person, changed the world. Oh yea, there is also Hitler. Just 1 person, changed the world, not in a good way though. - We have been living with it
Just because it is in the books doesn't make it right. If women had that attitude, the feminist movement wouldn't have started and women would not share a lot of the same rights as males. If gays and lesbians (GL) had that attitude, they wouldn't have started the campaign of awareness, being visible so that society know they exist and now see where it has gone. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder in any countries (it used to be). Laws against gay sex has been repelled in most progressive countries. Some countries even legalised same sex unions.
I'm not saying that just because you are interested in politics, you have to be an activist or even join a political party. It doesn't mean that but it does mean that you do believe that policies and laws affect people and whether it affects you or not, and you have an opinion about it and maybe just maybe educate others about what it means and its impact on society.
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