Realisation at last?
I never thought the day would come when anything faintly resembling the shadow of a story regarding the situation of young people in modern society hit the headlines. This doesn't cover half the topic, but is at least a start.
In a speech to, surprise surprise, students, Charles Kennedy today levelled the criticism that Labour "neglects" youth. Speaking at the London School of Economics, the Liberal Democrat leader said "We want young people to be part of the system - not outside looking in," a very profound statement by the standards of modern politicians.
The youth of today are becoming disengaged from society, disillusioned with the system, apathetic about democracy and politics in general. Why? Because decision-makers at all levels simply don't care about the views of a social group in which the majority of people aren't of voting age.
This whole problem is a vicious circle, as the above diagram details. Its root lies in the unwillingness of politicians to engage with the youth population, mostly because many are under the age of 18 – young people's views don’t matter in the political arena because there’s nothing to gain from their support. This means they aren’t interested in voting and leads to shockingly low turnout figures*. The whole circular process then starts againafter elections because the politicians don’t see any point in making efforts with people who probably won’t vote in large enough numbers to make a difference the next time round.
Modern-day politicians are obsessed with the short-term. They only think as far into the future as the next polling day and every action is carefully pondered with electoral popularity in mind. Radical changes and major upheavals are preferred to letting things be, just to make it look like the government is doing something vaguely productive, even in situations when such extreme measures are blatantly unrequired.
The media plays a substantial part as well. Young people are subjected to a constant barrage of unfair negative portrayal, although these incidents result from the actions of a very small disruptive minority. If any other group within society were so inaccurately ridiculed as thugs, louts, yobs and hooligans day after day it would be deemed simply unacceptable. Young people do not all wear hoodies, skulk at street corners and lurk behind bus shelters awaiting hapless victims - any fool can tell you that.
Of course this particular problem concerning public portrayal is a side issue to the bad-news-obsessed media culture which seems to have taken control of the world. People are much more interested to hear or read about scandal and controversy than success or achievement.
Young people currently find it difficult wanting to remain part of this society. This is one major factor in the rising rates of youth anti-social behaviour and crime (the other being a perplexing legal system without clear definition of what exactly constitutes anti-social conduct). Everything is against them. But something has to change soon because, if the situation continues its recent evolution, a whole generation will be lost to the waves of disengagement, disillusionment and apathy sweeping Britain today.
*18-25 age range voter turnout: 2001 - 35%, 2005 - 37% (source: MORI)
In a speech to, surprise surprise, students, Charles Kennedy today levelled the criticism that Labour "neglects" youth. Speaking at the London School of Economics, the Liberal Democrat leader said "We want young people to be part of the system - not outside looking in," a very profound statement by the standards of modern politicians.
The youth of today are becoming disengaged from society, disillusioned with the system, apathetic about democracy and politics in general. Why? Because decision-makers at all levels simply don't care about the views of a social group in which the majority of people aren't of voting age.
This whole problem is a vicious circle, as the above diagram details. Its root lies in the unwillingness of politicians to engage with the youth population, mostly because many are under the age of 18 – young people's views don’t matter in the political arena because there’s nothing to gain from their support. This means they aren’t interested in voting and leads to shockingly low turnout figures*. The whole circular process then starts againafter elections because the politicians don’t see any point in making efforts with people who probably won’t vote in large enough numbers to make a difference the next time round.
Modern-day politicians are obsessed with the short-term. They only think as far into the future as the next polling day and every action is carefully pondered with electoral popularity in mind. Radical changes and major upheavals are preferred to letting things be, just to make it look like the government is doing something vaguely productive, even in situations when such extreme measures are blatantly unrequired.
The media plays a substantial part as well. Young people are subjected to a constant barrage of unfair negative portrayal, although these incidents result from the actions of a very small disruptive minority. If any other group within society were so inaccurately ridiculed as thugs, louts, yobs and hooligans day after day it would be deemed simply unacceptable. Young people do not all wear hoodies, skulk at street corners and lurk behind bus shelters awaiting hapless victims - any fool can tell you that.
Of course this particular problem concerning public portrayal is a side issue to the bad-news-obsessed media culture which seems to have taken control of the world. People are much more interested to hear or read about scandal and controversy than success or achievement.
Young people currently find it difficult wanting to remain part of this society. This is one major factor in the rising rates of youth anti-social behaviour and crime (the other being a perplexing legal system without clear definition of what exactly constitutes anti-social conduct). Everything is against them. But something has to change soon because, if the situation continues its recent evolution, a whole generation will be lost to the waves of disengagement, disillusionment and apathy sweeping Britain today.
*18-25 age range voter turnout: 2001 - 35%, 2005 - 37% (source: MORI)
posted by Frederick at 02:45
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