That's my hand.Why do we get so *bleh* about national politics? Because in truth, contrary to everything the TV would have us believe, all politics is local. We just don't feel -really feel-- that we have a horse in the race. Why bother caring, if we can't tell the difference in the end?
Globalized media is a great thing on one hand, but on the other, it isolates us even more. If the only news we hear about is Britney, then we will begin to feel that Britney is the only thing worth talking about, the only thing that others want to hear about around the water cooler. Problem with that is that Britney is so far removed from us that we can't help but feel left out and insignificant. We don't know her, we won't know her; hell, most of us aren't even likely to see her if we wanted to.
Same thing goes for democracy: if the only candidates and elections we hear about are the national ones, then we are being led to believe that only national elections matter. There are two problems with that: one is that our nation is so big that our personal representatives most often don't have much of an impact individually, so we end up feeling insignificant in terms of the process; the other is that the nation's issues are so diverse that one person (the President, whose election is practically the only way we feel "involved" with our government) can't adequately represent all of our interests (or even all of the interests of all those who voted for him/her).
How could we not feel shut-out of the process? How could we feel anything other than apathy, when we are so far removed from what we're told is Important?
1 comment:
You're so right about the country being too big. And though I realize we live in a representative republic I usually don't feel I'm being represented at all. But that makes you and I unpatriotic.
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