For all the debate about civic engagement, active citizenship, and leadership, our generation is more disconnected from public affairs than almost any other this century. In 1996, during the Vietnam war and urban rioting across the country, 66 percent of Americans rejected the view that "the people running this country don't really care what happens to you." In 1997, during unprecedented economic growth and peace, 57 percent of Americans agreed with that same statement, according to social scientist Robert Putnam in his recent book "Bowling Alone". The US has one of the most open governments in the word, yet the trends suggest Americans are becoming involved less and less with their leadership. Check-writing is replacing activism just as mass-marketing is replacing campaigning.
It is old news that voting, the most basic form of political action, is unpopular in America. 1996 and 2000 saw nearly the lowest voter turnout in 100 years - lower than most other democracies. Voting requires relatively little effort and time, meaning that those who do not vote are unlikely to be engaged in politics in a more demanding way such as grassroots activism or organization. At the same time, spending on political campaigns is skyrocketing. Each new year sets the new heights of fundraising - more and more money is going in and a smaller and smaller percentage of people are voting.
Today, the average college graduate knows little more about politics than the average high-school graduate in the '40s, according to a 1995 Harvard study. This trend is generational - people who were involved tend to stay involved throughout their lives and vice versa, meaning that the current generation will continue to be aloof from politics when they are entering the height of their careers.
Similarly, people coming of age in the '80s and '90s are substantially less politically aware than their predecessors, despite the rapid growth of news sources. While two-thirds of people under 35 read a newspaper every day in 1965, only one third did in 1990, according to a Times Mirror Company study.
The Roper Social and Political Trends Survey - a monthly study of people's political engagement from 1973 to 1994 - hints at the same thing. Of 12 different political activities, from signing a petition to attending a rally to running for office, people are doing less and less of each. Americans were half as likely to work in a campaign or attend a rally in the '90s than they were in the '70s. During the same time, the number of people running for public office shrank by 15 percent. This means there are fewer players and fewer spectators - not the healthiest thing for democracy.
On the other hand, recent years have seen a flourishing of political organizations, from Common Cause to the NRA to the Sierra Club to the Moral Majority. Though there are more groups than ever, their nature has changed. Few national organizations maintain local chapters anymore, preferring instead to operate centrally from Washington where they have quick access to lawmakers. Although this allows people to support a myriad of issues they might otherwise not have time for, it is essentially democracy by proxy. Instead of being engaged ourselves, we are hiring others to do it for us.
While membership in political organizations has been halved between 1967 and 1987, the number of people who contribute financially to causes has essentially doubled. Being a member of an organization such as the Sierra Club or NRA now means writing a check every year instead of becoming personally involved in an issues. Greenpeace was at its peak in 1990 because of an aggressive mailing campaign, becoming the largest environmental organization in the country. Worried that using so much paper in junk mail was hypocritical, they scaled back their direct marketing and by 1998, their membership had decreased by 85 percent, according to Dr. Putnam.
The internet, while allowing people to be vastly more connected and informed, has also allowed people to be involved in a more superficial way. Instead of going out to their communities and taking action directly, people can send a form letter to a member of congress simply by visiting a web page. Although the Internet has made each organization more effective at mobilizing short-term political action, it has meant less actual personal involvement for most people.
Mass movements that rely too much on virtual membership have little staying power since their supporters have few substantial ties to them. Whereas being a part of the freedom summer in the '60s might have been a life-changing experience, few members of today's political organizations even know what their group does on a daily basis. People's alliance to political causes has become more tenuous and abstract. The promise keepers, for instance, organized a mass rally in 1997 that 500,000 people attended - supposedly the largest gathering ever of a religious group in America yet as soon as it was over, the Promise Keepers nearly collapsed, laying off their entire staff.
So fewer people are voting, reading the papers, following current events or actively taking part in politics - so what? After all, perhaps this aloofness is a tacit stamp of approval on our government. The again, complacency is hardly what Jefferson, Madison and Washington had in mind. Fewer people caring about government means fewer people caring about quality control.
