Political Apathy Amongst Youths
1. Reflect on youth apathy towards politics. Draw on examples from China, the United States and Singapore in your reflections.
Before I go into the topic, let’s make clear the definition of the term ‘political apathy’ first. Political apathy is public or individual indifference towards political events and movements. Sad to say, this term that is coined up applies in most cases to youths in today’s society. And by youths, they are those who are born in the 1980s, of age 20 and above currently. Though political apathy being present in the States, China and Singapore is an undeniable fact, the political apathy will still be different in one way or another, depending on where you are looking at.
First, let us go into political apathy amongst youths in the United States of America. In this ever-changing global society, what really matters is, to put it simply, to earn as much bucks as you can, and climb the ladder of success. As long as one has affluence and wealth, that is considered success. Politics? Where does that fit into the jigsaw puzzle? Nowhere. So, logical and clear-minded youths of the American society, in their younger days of schooling, would have just plainly concentrated on their studies, rather than devoting that one hour just to catch up with the daily news happenings.
A few years back, there has been a widespread commotion over a video that has been spread online all over the world, which depicted American’s “stupidity”. Random American passers-by were halted to answer some general knowledge questions with relation to their homeland. Amazingly, questions like “Who’s the vice-president?” and “Name the ruling political party” managed to stump almost all interviewees. Even a question like “Where does the President reside in?” receives a variety of amusing answers, with only few evidences of “The White House”.
Viewers from all over the world are literally laughing hard at Americans’ ignorance of their own country’s affairs, and the
Before I go into the topic, let’s make clear the definition of the term ‘political apathy’ first. Political apathy is public or individual indifference towards political events and movements. Sad to say, this term that is coined up applies in most cases to youths in today’s society. And by youths, they are those who are born in the 1980s, of age 20 and above currently. Though political apathy being present in the States, China and Singapore is an undeniable fact, the political apathy will still be different in one way or another, depending on where you are looking at.
First, let us go into political apathy amongst youths in the United States of America. In this ever-changing global society, what really matters is, to put it simply, to earn as much bucks as you can, and climb the ladder of success. As long as one has affluence and wealth, that is considered success. Politics? Where does that fit into the jigsaw puzzle? Nowhere. So, logical and clear-minded youths of the American society, in their younger days of schooling, would have just plainly concentrated on their studies, rather than devoting that one hour just to catch up with the daily news happenings.
A few years back, there has been a widespread commotion over a video that has been spread online all over the world, which depicted American’s “stupidity”. Random American passers-by were halted to answer some general knowledge questions with relation to their homeland. Amazingly, questions like “Who’s the vice-president?” and “Name the ruling political party” managed to stump almost all interviewees. Even a question like “Where does the President reside in?” receives a variety of amusing answers, with only few evidences of “The White House”.
Viewers from all over the world are literally laughing hard at Americans’ ignorance of their own country’s affairs, and the