Quotes & Sayings About Political Apathy

Democracy suits Europeans today partly because it is associated with the triumph of capitalism and partly because it involves less commitment or intrusion into their lives than any of the alternatives. Europeans accept democracy because they no longer believe in politics. It is for this reason that we find both high levels of support for democracy in cross-national opinion polls and high rates of political apathy. — Mark Mazower

The Labour Party is going about the country stirring up apathy. — William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount Whitelaw

While floor statements from today's [congressional] representatives are typically delivered to empty galleries and published into unread oblivion, legislative debates in the Reconstruction era were widely disseminated and closely observed. — Andrew Buttaro

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ... whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance. — Thomas Jefferson

It has been a failure of such monumental proportions that political apathy is no longer considered fashnionable or even safe, among millions of people who only two years ago thought that anybody who disagreed openly with the goverment was either paranoid or subversive. Political candidates in 1974, at least, are going to have to deal with an angry, disillusioned electorate that is not likely to settle for flag-waving and pompous bullshit. — Hunter S. Thompson

A very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe [war]. I think that's more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity ... and therefore I think that it's, in some sense, the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and violent. — Noam Chomsky

They all had a thousand good economic and political reasons why they couldn't stop. I'm not a politician or a businessman; how am I supposed to persuade them about these things. What are we supposed to do; quite likely the world will collapse and disappear under water; but at least that will happen for political and economic reasons we can all understand, at least it will happen with the help of science, technology and public opinion, with human ingenuity of all sorts! Not some cosmic catastrophe but just the same old reasons to do with the struggle for power and money and so on. There's nothing we can do about that. — Karel Capek

Even where the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference to this obligation of citizenship. In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide. — Martin Luther King Jr.

First they gerrymander us into one-party fiefs. Then they tell us they only care about the swing districts. Then they complain about voter apathy. — Gail Collins

Fascism is aided and advanced by the apathy of those who are tired of being conned and lied to by a bankrupt liberal establishment, whose only reason to vote for a politician or support a political party is to elect the least worst. This, for many voters, is the best Clinton can offer. — Chris Hedges

They see in the political apathy of the proletariat only the apathy, not the protest against a system that has nothing to offer them. — Red Army Faction

The greatest threats to Democracy are comfort and apathy. — T. Rafael Cimino

Electoral turnout is falling among the young, and political apathy is on the rise. — Mo Ibrahim

Putting it in plain terms, the general public must be reduced to its traditional apathy and obedience, and driven from the arena of political debate and action, if democracy is to survive. — Noam Chomsky

Historical determinism is a recipe for political quietism. — Terry Eagleton

Politicians would be well advised not to hold their breath for youth to engage in politics any time soon. Today's youth are the first generation to have realized for real change to occur, it must happen on an individual level rather than at an administrative level. — James Morcan

Public opinion is a powerful tool, if not the ultimate tool, for changing policies of the seemingly omnipotent political leaders. The greatest danger is an apathy that allows for evil to thrive when bad people rule over us and provoke nationalistic and patriotic fervor that intimidates many into compliance. — Ron Paul

Our political concepts, according to which we have to assume responsibility for all public affairs within our reach regardless of personal "guilt", because we are held responsible as citizens for everything that our government does in the name of the country, may lead us into an intolerable situation of global responsibility. The solidarity of mankind may well turn out to be an unbearable burden, and it is not surprising that the common reactions to it are political apathy, isolationist nationalism, or desperate rebellion against all powers that be rather than enthusiasm or a desire for a revival of humanism. — Hannah Arendt

The kingdom's advance is set in motion by the Galilean march out of the graveyard. We should then be the last people on earth to skulk back in fear or apathy. And we ought also to be the last people on earth to uncritically laud any political leader or movement as though this were what we've been waiting for. We need leaders and allies, but we do not need a Messiah. That job is filled, and he's feeling fine. — Russell D. Moore

When this happens, as it is today, then, to quote Eric Hoffer, "When freedom destroys order, the yearning for order will destroy freedom."
At that point the words left or right will make no difference. They are only two roads to the same end. There is no difference between authoritarian government from the right or the left: the results are the same. An elite, an authoritarianism as such, will gradually force form on society so that it will not go on to chaos. And most people will accept it - from the desire for personal peace and affluence, from apathy, and from the yearning for order to assure the functioning of some political system, business, and the affairs of daily life. That is just what Rome did with Caesar Augustus — Francis A. Schaeffer

I remember the moon landings, and Apollo was the paradigm by which all progress was measured at that time. And I knew that creating a true space-faring civilization was both possible and practical. What I failed to realize was that the effort would fail due to bureaucratic inertia and political apathy. — Karl Schroeder

Today's political climate does not allow the luxury of apathy. — Trent Reznor

You can see where it's going. The extraordinary political apathy that followed Watergate and Vietnam and the institutionalization of grass-roots rebellion among minorities will only deepen. Politics is about consensus, and the advertising legacy of the sixties is that consensus is repression. Voting'll be unhip: Americans now vote with their wallets. Government's only cultural role will be as the tyrannical parent we both hate and need. Look for us to elect someone who can cast himself as a Rebel, maybe even a cowboy, but who deep down we'll know is a bureaucratic creature who'll operate inside the government mechanism instead of naively bang his head against it the way we've watched poor Jimmy do for four years. — David Foster Wallace

Carl Schmitt could boast with some justice that the Nazi revolution was orderly and disciplined. But the reason lies not so much within the Nazis themselves as in the lack of an effective opposition. For millions the Nazi ideology did assuage their anxiety, did end their alienation, and did give hope for a better future. Other millions watched passively, not deeply committed to resistance. "Let them have a chance" was a typical attitude. Hitler took the chance and made the most of it. — George L. Mosse

There's an axiom I live by: 'There is no art without politics.' You either choose to engage it, or you choose political apathy. This ties in with ideas around real-time performance and feedback. — Chris Jordan