Apathy And Politics

Articles

Apathy And Politics

By Simon Maslin
Apr. 25, 2005

I gladly confess these days to being a terminal slacker; a crime I probably have always been guilty of what with my incessant social apathy, lack of commercial ambition and general indifference to most of the things other people seem to find important. However I find that as I get older and ever deeper into my Quarter-Life-Crisis (which surrounds and defines my very existence these days) I am also getting - somewhat inconceivably - more opinionated and more political.

This in itself is somewhat odd; I never used to care about politics, voting only reluctantly because I knew if I didn't it would upset my Grandfather (fighting a war to save a country your descendents don't seem to have any interest in is naturally horrifying) and usually voting for the weirdest minority political party, or at most for somebody with an entertaining sounding name.

Then we had a couple of new (non-income related and therefore disproportionately high) taxes slapped on us, a war nobody saw any point in and the general downward spiral of privatisation, materialistic obsession and social atrophy which has accompanied the death of Socialism in this country (the UK, before you ask). Now we have a Labour (supposedly left wing) government who are more right wing than our right-wing government of ten years ago, an opposition party (the Conservatives) who are so reactionary and generally inconsistent as to have no credibility whatsoever and a liberal party who seem to lack focus and indeed any likelihood of getting anywhere, ever.

Now me, I'm a left wing libertarian (hey it's official, I've done the tests which tell me so) and like everyone else around here who isn't a screaming Nazi or a raving Blair-ite, we have little option but to vote Liberal to try and swing things back into sanity. Now I'm happy with that, many are - trouble is, not enough people are bothering. Seems these days everyone who isn't over forty is just shrugging with Nineties-style indifference and ignoring the situation. This is naturally cool and all that - but people, not voting is in itself a vote to maintain the status quo. Isn't it time we all bothered to actually go out and do something about this right wing vs right wing government and actually provide a more diverse voice in this country?

Hey, I'm not telling you to vote for anyone in particular, I don't care what your views are (that's your business) - just go vote. We lack proportional representation in this country which means, like the US, we will continue to live in a two-party charade of democracy, where only the moderately-right-wing survive and every minority, or contrary voice is denied representation at all but the most grass-roots level. But it strikes me that if we are ever to bring some true balance to politics, we need to shake things up a little. We don't need a revolution - just a greater appreciation of the importance of personal political opinion and the willingness to act on what we know to be true, reasonable and sensible for the government which dictates our lives to us every day that we live them, however haphazardly.

So go out people; go vote. Do something useful. Then afterwards, like me, continue to sit back, drink beer, bitch about religion and carry on doing nothing constructive. At least then we can all feel good about our brief flurry of political screaming in the knowledge that we've tried to make ourselves heard. It's the least we can do to justify the rest of our lives that we spend not contributing to anything meaningful in our society.

------------

About the author: Simon Maslin is a cynical English writer and guitar player. He has published a novel and several other books through www.lulu.com and interfaces with the universe largely through his website www.maslinbooks.co.uk.

Email: simon@maslinbooks.co.uk

Tell a friend about this site!

------------

All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED!