By Rob JackmanThe Daily Northwestern
Northwestern students are fond of accusing themselves of political apathy. When political topics arise in discussion, most students sheepishly withdraw from the conversation. If they don’t, they probably know just enough about the issue to go on intelligently for three or four minutes. Any more and the arguments start to go in circles. Many perceive this as a problem.
It’s not. Apathy is a perfectly acceptable political position.
There are countless reasons why good people don’t care about politics. It’s a reflection of American society as a whole, where citizens take a great deal of pride in the democratic process and then don’t participate in it. Mass politics, after all, doesn’t guarantee freedom. What Americans value above all else is their own sense of liberty. That liberty is guarded sometimes by eternal vigilance, but sometimes by dispassion. On the great continuum of emotion, apathetic Americans are the most dispassionate of all.
By ignoring political issues, apathetic Americans focus on things they can actually affect. They have time to contemplate philosophy or sports and generally have a more easy-going lifestyle. Think of a life where you don’t have to get angry at President Bush every day. Apathetic Americans can even get involved in politics when it affects their own direct economic situation (such as student loans). They have, in the old proverbial sense, the serenity to accept those things which they can’t change.
NU’s most serious intellectual undergrad problem isn’t political apathy, but pre-professionalism. That’s right, I’m talking to you, McCormick and Medill kids. Three quarters of the econ department too. Rather than focusing on a liberal arts education, which is meant to give us enough water to traverse the intellectual desert of the professional world, many Northwesterners get a head start on professional tedium. Everything that the apathetic person isn’t, the pre-professional is. Unless you’re apathetic and pre-professional, in which case you’re probably boring.
Both NU and America have a good balance of people who are politically inclined and those who don’t care. We need some wide-eyed college kids out there, because the political process can be a force for good in this world. Of course, to be that force for good, you would have to go through plodding bureaucracy, endless committees and meetings, entrenched special interest groups and the intrinsic human resistance to change. But hey, if Jimmy Carter created lasting change in America, why can’t you? The world can always handle another disillusioned soul.
So don’t fret if you can’t find yourself excited by C-SPAN or global warming. Most of what is good in life will never come from Washington or Springfield, Ill. Don’t let anyone else cow you with the “civic duty” hogwash. Next time someone tells you to get educated about politics, say it loud: I’m apathetic and proud!
Weinberg senior Rob Jackman can be reached at [email protected].
