I know it seems like what outrages you would outrage anyone, but that’s not really how it always works.
For me (and I think this is the case for a great many others) apathy was largely (if not entirely) due to a lack of knowledge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fully aware that for many people ignorance doesn’t make any difference whatsoever…not only in forming opinions, but in espousing them…even to the point of pretending (and even exclaiming) they are facts.
But there are also a great many people whose ignorance brings them in the other direction. They feel (and rightly so) that they do not know enough on the subject to have a valid opinion. It’s entirely possible they’ve held an opinion or two in the past and were either put in doubt after hearing someone else’s take on the subject, or put in their place quite mercilessly by someone who was much more informed than they. This can easily allow one to come to the conclusion that they are not in a position to have an opinion…so they don’t.
Think about the world from the uninformed person’s perspective. You have “really smart” people on both sides of every economic and political topic. Hell, that fact is preciesly a tactical piece of information used by the opinionated faction of the uninformed populace whenever they want to try to discount something they disagree with. We’ve all heard them. When they’re backed into a corner and have nothing left, they resort to the ol’ “for every supporting paper/expert you could cite, I could find one that says the opposite”. And then if they’re really stupid they finish it off with the insufferable “so I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagee.”
But it is true that there are smart people who completely disagree all the time. Experts in the same fields, even. So it’s not hard to understand how someone who is not at all informed, understands virtually nothing of the subject at hand, and may not be very bright overall, could simply feel that it’s hopeless…and could rest on the notion that “these people are genius experts who study this their whole lives and even they can’t agree…so how the heck am I supposed to know?”
That’s where apathy comes from. The easiest thing to do is just say “well I’ll just let the experts sort it out.”
In the same sense that the cure for poverty is wealth, the cure for apathy is enthusiasm. However, enthusiasm doesn’t easily come from nowhere. People have to have a reason to care. So for the answer you might look to where people are most enthusiastic. (Which, if you click the link, you’ll see I’m talking about Ron Paul supporters). Just do a search for “Ron Paul cure apathy”. You’ll see all kinds of references and videos of people talking about how they went from “political athiest” to “activist”. (Videos like this, and this.)
For some, it can be something as simple as having someone that is trustworthy and honorable. But for many others, (myself included) apathy began to disappear as knowledge was acquired. I’m actually of a less common breed in that my discovery of Ron Paul largely came after my discovery of free market economics. For me, it was largely an understanding of economics that was the understanding that allowed me to begin forming assessments and opinions about these kinds of things.
This of course was informed by a parallel study of libertarian theory as well. Between these two things I began to become more and more politically inclined. In my opinion political ideology largely comes along with economic understanding. I don’t think one could possess any significant understanding of economics and not have opinions regarding policy.
And I think this explains the enthusiasm for Ron Paul. His words and expression of ideas invites others to investigate these things…both libertarian philosophy and free market economics. And it’s like he says, freedom is innately attractive. We all have a desire to be free. And Paul supporters (even the super young ones) tend to be extremely knowledgable (especially when compared to the average person). Whether he piques their interest (through his consistency and honesty) and they in turn go study and become exicted, or whether they study and are in turn drawn to him because he’s the personification of the right philosophy (both political and economic) and become excited…the result is the same: knowledge and enthusiasm…which is the cure for ignorance and apathy.
So my suggestion for curing apathy is to introduce these people to the idea that there is a right answer…that you can understand what’s going on, and that you don’t have to be clueless and throw up your hands and leave it all to the “experts” in Washington.
Ways to go about this are mentioned here: