Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Politicians?
People get angry at something they see on TV or read in the newspaper. Maybe they even write a letter or show up to a meeting. When the issue is decided one way or the other, these people go back to their usual routine. In other words, people only get involved in politics when it directly affects them.
This phenomenon is known as the NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) effect and it has taken young minds by storm of late. Lehigh’s campus provides no shortage of examples.
One such example is The Patriot’s “Breaking the Bubble” survey results from last issue. The predominant response to the question “What do you feel is the single most important thing for Obama to accomplish during his Presidency?” was something regarding the economy.
Whether this was simply because it had been receiving the most press recently or because people genuinely thought that reviving a crumbling economy was the most important issue the United States was facing is a job for the Social Psychologists and the Sociologists.
While we can’t necessarily draw any conclusions from this particular finding, we can ponder its potential significance when coupled with the fact that the second most common response was something to the effect of “I’m not particularly good with politics.”
Two other examples of this are the Movement and the Council for Equity and Community (CEC). The former had over 70 attendees at its meeting in the middle of November following the elections and the bias-related incidents during that time, yet its consistent membership is back to the comparatively small numbers of the months previous.
The latter experienced a similar peak in attendance for the town hall meeting (which was less of a town hall meeting than a several-hundred-person round table discussion) following the same incidents, but once again finds its attendance at about the same levels as before the incidents.
This, however, is not helped by the fact that the CEC meets at quite possibly the most inconvenient time and even then, very infrequently. Mondays from noon to 2:00 PM every three months likely cuts into most students’ classes.
While this is not necessarily a political forum, it does bear some resemblance to political government bodies on the municipal and county level. The fact that the meetings are held at a time when students are unable to attend may foster a sense that those in power wish to merely go through the motions of making government open to its constituents without actually doing so in a reasonable way.
If ill feelings are fostered between American voters and something as benign as an educational institution, this could potentially lead to proportionately more ill feelings between the same voters and the boards who govern them and necessarily exert more power and have far greater scope.
The Movement, on the other hand, demonstrates a misunderstanding of how decisions are made. While anger and emotion do certainly evoke reactions from people, decisions must be made in a calm and collected manner in an effort to remain fair to everybody.
This organization capitalizes on emotional topics, inciting members to hold demonstrations rather than sit at a negotiating table and calmly resolve situations. Its leadership leads meetings by swearing at those in attendance because, of the approximately 30,000 words in the English language, only those select few that can be used as any part of speech can adequately express the emotion felt.
This not only serves to potentially (though perhaps unintentionally) deter calm, collected individuals who might otherwise become involved in politics from doing so, but also has the potential to reinforce the false notion that becoming angry and swearing at people, even those who may share ideals, is an appropriate way to achieve progress.
Both of these examples has a tendency to exhibit and potentially reinforce an “us against them” mentality, which is yet another reason why people may become disinterested in politics. A feeling of helplessness or inability is very much a debilitating notion, and one way to overcome this is to bring back proper Civics Education at the high school level.
Without a proper understanding of how government and political systems work, it is difficult to understand why situations are, in fact, the way that they are. In addition, by understanding the framework within which political and similar decisions are made, it becomes obvious that the “us against them” mindset is, for the most part, just a myth.
In my last article (December 2008), I proposed the idea that the American political system is, by and large, broken. This is not to say also that the American political system doesn’t work. It most certainly works, just not necessarily well.
The reason for this is that the American political system is a Democratic Republic. That means that the people as a whole run the government by electing officials to make the major decisions for them. In order for that to work, however, the people must remain involved. The problem then remains that people don’t wish to get involved, for a variety of reasons.
Naturally, not everybody will get involved, but it is our responsibility as citizens of the United States of America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, to give this grand experiment called Democracy (and our implementation, the Democratic Republic) another shot and become involved.
That doesn’t mean you should necessarily run for public office. That doesn’t even mean you should spend your evenings going to local town meetings. Reading the news, supporting your local candidates, and writing Letters to the Editor are all ways in which the average American can become involved in the political system.
This is an issue which is neither Democrat nor Republican, neither liberal nor conservative, and has absolutely nothing to do with which minority you are or aren’t a part of. This is an issue of pride in one’s country, pride in one’s state, pride in one’s municipality, and pride in one’s community.
