Why do so many Americans ordinarily pay so little attention to politics, let alone participate?
Two of the most common answers'money and scandals'are at best only partial truths. One of the major problems with these explanations is that they focus attention on politicians and away from ordinary citizens. But apathy isn't due to the stupidity or ignorance of U.S. citizens. Apathy stems at least in part from how consumer capitalism has come to shape our lives and our very identities.
Before you disregard me a Marxist (gasp!), consider this:
Do you know more about professional football or global warming? \Survivor"" or the polutants in your drinking water? Tom Cruise or your representative in Congress? Do you see or hear more media ads from McDonald's and Gap or from the Democratic and Republican parties? Do you think and talk more about the latest purchase you made or the TV sitcom you saw, or about the latest legislation introduced in city, state and federal governments that directly affects you? After work, are you more likely to watch a TV sitcom or participate in a community meeting?
There's nothing that natually disposes The Washington Post to run political party ads or disposes people to attend community meetings and inform themselves about global warming and the latest legislation. However, nor is there anything that naturally disposes NBC to run McDonald's ads or human beings to want to know more about football, Gap and ""Survivor"" than the safety of their own drinking water and other public issues. But extensive and relentless efforts of countless capitalist companies, large and small, have so profoundly shaped our lives that we consider all this natural, as if human beings since pre-historic times have naturally yearned to shop at Gap, eat at McDonald's and yap about the latest ""Survivor"" episode.
The engines of capitalism'the all-too-visible 'E'Entertainment Channel, Home Depot, Toys-R-Us and Burger King, and the all-too-invisible advertising and marketing agencies'contribute to apathy in part by distracting us. There is little if any money to be made by turning citizens on to politics, but there is much money to be made in turning us on to the vicious cycle of work and spend.
But the engines of consumer capitalism don't just distract us, they privatize us, stripping the political from our personal interests, knowledge and routines. Toys-R-Us peddles its toys in countless malls without telling us where and how those toys were made, with what consequences for workers and the environment. Nike hires advertiseds to turn our attention to Michael Jordan's sneakers and public relations specialists to turn our eyes away from its sweatshops. McDonald's spends millions to imprint its golden arches on our mental and physical landscapes, but stifles efforts to publicize the consequences of its business for waistlines, animals and global warming. The list goes on and on.
The profound irony is that just as our consumption becomes ever more globally consequential, we know less and feel less in control of out sonsumption and its consequences.
The problem is not that we consume, but how we consume. The trouble is that contemporary capitalism tirelessly peddles a form of consumption that exploits nature and most workers as it dazzles and distracts consumers away from the exploitation it sows.
Capitalist consumerism goes much further in explaining our apathy because it captures much more of our everyday attention than politicians' ballyhooed corruption. And if consumer capitalism firms further succeed in turning life into consumption rather than citizenship, the link between consumerism and political apathy may only grow stronger.
