Watch Out for Apathy

An article entitled “Political Ignorance Revisited” by Professor Steven Earl Bennet was examined by Steve Winship (and came to my attention by way of Matthew Yglesias) after appearing in the new online journal Public Opinion Pros, which deals, unsurprisingly, with issues and methodology in public opinion.

Overall the piece is a familiar lament of the ignorance of the American issues regarding issues of public policy and knowledge of public figures, especially among the young. Bennet goes as far to state that the young’s “apathy and political ignorance do not bode well for the future of democracy.”

What troubles me most when I read studies and finding like this is not the ignorance of the public about politics and public issues (though admittedly the numbers can seem a bit grim), but rather the tremendous ignorance of public opinion professionals, political operatives, and politicians themselves about the public.

Take for example the following passage:

The 2004 ANES (American National Election Study) also showed that strong partisans, intense ideologues, and, especially, those who are very interested in politics are much more informed than their opposites, even when other factors affecting information are considered. But attachment to parties has weakened, most Americans are not ideologues, and many are apathetic.

It’s obviously no surprise that people who are interested in something tend to know more about it than those who aren’t interested, but in an era where we are constantly reminded how polarized we are, is it any surprise that those who inhabit those poles tend to feel most connected to politics?

Attachment to parties has weakened, that’s true, but so has attachment to various other civic and community organizations, as writings by Robert Putnam and Theda Skopol suggest. What we are witnessing is not simply a turning away from the public issues, but from the very notion of the public.

Which brings me to the idea of apathy. To suggest that apathy plays a role in people’s ignorance of the major political issues of the day is to suggest that people don’t care about the education of their children, their ability to receive health care, or their own personal security or well being. Anyone who has spent any amount of time listening to their friends and neighbors knows that people are concerned about these things – they may not dwell on them obsessively, but they certainly have concerns and opinions.

There is a growing body of qualitative research that has been spearheaded by my former colleagues at The Harwood Institute, and supported in large part by the Kettering Foundation, that shows that people do care deeply about these issues, but they are unable to see how the political debates of the day and the rhetoric deployed by political leaders relate to their concerns. (A good primer on the evolution of these attitudes over the past 15 years can be found in the book Hope Unraveled: The People’s Retreat and Our Way Back). Rather than apathy, anger, lament, or, in some cases quiet resignation would be more apt descriptions.

We can see a glimmer of recognition of the fundamental disconnect between the personal and public dimensions of these issues toward the conclusion of the article, when Bennett is discussing James Fishkin’s proposed “deliberative polls” as a remedy for both apathy and ignorance.

The 2004 ANES found, for example, that persons who reported discussing politics with family and friends were significantly better informed than those who eschewed political talk.

Anyone who is familiar with how people talk about public issues (pollsters a rule aren’t because they usually elicit responses, not discussion) know that when people talk about their friends and family about local education issues, for instance, they don’t usually see it as political talk. I would think because of that the number of people who self-reported talking about politics is much lower than the number of people who actually discuss public issues, which are undeniably political, with their family and friends.

Surely, people need to take responsibility for knowing about public issues and how they are affected by them. Such understanding strengthens our democracy and the health of our political process. It is misguided to think that “the public” is alone responsible. The media tends to cover partisanship rather than public issues, reporting on the inside baseball of politics rather than the implications of policy, and political leaders too rarely ground their rhetoric in a reality that resonates with the personal concerns that people face every day. Until we all start reconciling personal concerns with public issues, we will continue to fall further away from any sort of coherent public discourse and we will continue to breed the anger and frustration that is so often labeled “apathy”.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for how we get back on the right path?