Apathy Essay Research Paper What Is ApathyApathy — страница 2

Democracy is something everyone learns as early as kindergarten. When the teacher asks if it will be kickball or dodge ball at recess, the majority usually wins. It is an easy lesson for a 5-year-old to learn, as is raising your hand for what you want. However, one of the most simple and necessary elements of a democracy is the reliance on active participation in the government by a majority of the population. If the participants are not influenced to be active, the system fails. By educating students and the public about the value of the system, the education system could help combat apathy. The tradition that college graduates are looked upon with more respect than the less educated has ended. How can the so-called higher educated members of society gain any respect when most

graduates are unable or unwilling to participate in a ritual of our nation? The problem is that traditional education, that included more intensive study of government, has been replaced by a system that increasingly focuses on technology and skills training but may be failing in educating good citizens. A higher education should be more than job preparation; it should be a continuing desire to improve and guarantee the quality of life for generations to come. With a lack of knowledge in politics and democracy comes the myth that one vote does not make a difference. Many young adults have no faith in the system, therefore they do not vote due to the feeling of disappointment that their vote does not matter. How often do you hear young adults say, “I did not vote because I

don’t feel as if my vote would count.” Others are disenchanted with the political system because voting in the past never produced results. However, young people today need to realize that one voice does make a difference. In addition, if more young adults took an interest, politicians would be forced to listen. For example, financial aid is one of many issues at hand in recent political campaigns. If politicians continue to cut student aid, some young people may not have a chance for a college education. Thus, young adults must have faith in the system and increase the number of young voters. Otherwise, politicians will continue to cater only to the needs of the older generation that is voting them into office. The two largest voting publics in the United States are senior

citizens and the college aged groups (Gherry 328). Ironically, it is the senior citizens who are the more politically informed, and who vote in the greatest numbers. These statistics support the contention that the youth of America are becoming less informed about the process and necessity of voting, and are also more apathetic about the true significance of voting. As Americans, we must do something about voter apathy because not only does voting allow us to be active in the political process, it enables us to fulfill our civic duty and exert our political influence. Contrary to public opinion, every vote makes a difference in this process and it may not seem like it, but if more people began to vote, they would definitely get noticed. Ironically, the last presidential election

should have supported the idea of voter significance, yet served to create more apathy because of the post-election mess that occurred. Many people now feel the popular vote did not reign supreme, and that the voting system itself was shown to have more problems than was previously thought. To let our representatives know what we want, we must also exert our political influence by being politically active. How can we do this? We can vote in state, local, and national elections, lobby to persuade our representatives to vote a certain way, and write letters to our representatives about policy issues. Of course, there are other ways of being politically active; to me, these are the most effective. One thing needs to take place, and that is educational awareness of the political

system and its impact, pure and simple. A good way to start getting votes out would be to have the majority rules method of voting. If you could just see that your vote made a difference in the election of the president of your nation, it would make you want to vote again. If the nation would listen to the educated people of the country instead of listening to the media, then the nation would be a whole lot better in terms of economics, welfare, war, and our society in general. In my opinion, we the people of this nation do not care about these campaigns that are putting the other candidates down, we just want to hear the good things about what they can do to better our nation. There is not anything that Americans hate more than liars and back stabbers. By “getting the vote