Dedicated to Apathy

If you ask your average political enthused human what is a the greatest tragedy facing our dear political generation you can get a variety of answers that ultimately boil down to the same old slogan. “People are disenfranchised”. This the type of phrase that gets thrown around in one form or another like its it some giant plague cloud drifting from mind to mind filling its victim’s head with beige indifference to anything political with a dosage of “fuck the politicans” cynicism that seems to be a form of political masturbation to make ourselves feel like we have contributed to the great political discord. It gets worse when you talk about that ever so sacred term “young people”.

We assume that the average young person is around 18–24 during which they have shagged, smoked, drank and ultimately descending into that sense of post coital bliss where all sense of animal urges are gone and you begin a well respected career after getting that degree you will most likely forget everything about in a few months. Indeed, all you need to do to get points in the critical awareness department is use the phrase “young people” and portay them as the ultimate victims of the political establishment and that their spirited zeal has been crushed by the evil mechanations of the neo-liberal elite.

It seems that there is a sense that these beloved people are the key to unlocking utopia, that they possess hidden knowledge or have the political force to remake this vile greedy world. But let’s be fair, politics is hardly boring nor is it even unapproachable, you can easily find yourself a particular part of it that you find interesting and most people do. The problem is that if you stare into the political warp you begin to realise it fundamentally inhuman. To be “politically active” or even just aware you must not only know all the variety of fucked up shit going on in your country and the wider world but you must do something that will inevitably make people stare at you with the same disgust they would have for an open sewage drain. It’s not enough to know whats going on but you must have an opinion about how your going to fix it. And here is where things get royally fucked up.

Opinions float around in your head, changing, evolving and mutating into a level of complex monstrosity and reasoning that any attempt to fully explain yourself is going to end in people thinking your fucking mad. But you know why you have such an opinion, its yours, your own and it makes sense to you. Even if you cant expain it, it belongs to you and is as much part of you as your entire personality. The complexity of your opinions reflect the complexity of the problems being faced. Any attempt to make it simple and bite size the solution to a problem is not doing anyone any favours and is just a means of people pretending they are smarter and better than you. You ever hear someone say a really generic term as a means of solving any problem? For example “people should be less greedy” or “we need more community spirit”. What the fuck are they actually saying? Noone understands these terms, they get thrown around without any understanding as to what they mean in a particular context, but they get the applause and are treated as the great paragons of a political age.

Any attempt to try and simplify a solution into bite-sized trendy phrases is what happens when you try to introduce an ideology to the mix of any discussion. All ideologies have this imaginary land in their heads that, if only people did this, did that, did something else, then everything would be perfect. Well the great thing about that level of abstraction is that you dont have to worry about the crap you dont understand. If things dont go your way its because people are mad, bad or sad. Its not because your head is too far in the fucking cloud and that you are so full of your ego that you cant imagine people can be both smart, sane and not worship you and your principles.

What drives me to apathy is not the lack of principles or ideology but because there is way too fucking much of it. The average person is not a heartless bastard, or brainwashed by the mainstream media into being a working drone. They have their own fucking lives to live, they work all day and when they are not working they want to actually enjoy what they got and do shit that doesn’t piss them off. Most people’s do not have the stomach to live and breath politics every day. Most of them are aware and understand shit is going on but they dont want to get involved in trying to talk about what to do, and who can blame them? Trying to get people to be more involved in politics and the same time trying to fill their heads with abstract nonsense is the exact reason why some people just want to tune out.

Have the wrong view on immigration, the economy, a certain political person and you a treated at worst total vile distain and at best a condecending lecture behind the smug self righteous smile of someone who is high on their own ego as they try to enlighten another pleb. And they all make it sound like the answers are so easy, that it doesnt really take much to solve these problems like crime, climate change, education etc. All you need is to look it is from our special perspective and everything becomes simpler. See, if you have that kind of attitude dont be surprised if people consider you a douchebag. It is this type of, “I have all the answers” attitude and the contempt for any sort of deviation that makes people apathetic because no matter what opinion you hold your going to piss someone off. Someone is going to be offended by what you think no matter how moderate or benign such an opinion is. Life is complex, the world is complex, its not a perfect mathametical formula which you can just change around a few variables and voila, problem solved. That’s why most ordinary people are moderates, they dont want some crappy lecture as to how the world can be made perfect, they want that sense of humility that when you have as many people with as many opinions to deal with as many problems then dont think that yours is any special and that you have any authority to pretend that you know the answer to everything. To be a moderate today is to admit a simple truth, I have no fucking clue what to do so lets just take our time and not do anything too stupid.

So your either stuck with two choice when looking into the maelstrom of political discord; you can either find your camp, place your flag and preach the holy word of your “ism” to the plebian savages. Or you can say “fuck this” get on with your life, be a well rounded person with social skills who lives in the real world and keep your political activity to that little X you put on in the ballot paper every couple of years and form your own opinions in your head with all the fucked up complexities and fantasticly absurd reasoning that only you can comprehend. Living your own life is hard enough, so don’t waste your time getting involved in things that are far beyond your control and you have no stake in, leave that to the people who get off on politics…