Second set of town-hall meetings draws small but impassioned in Ferguson, page 1

a reply to: feldercarb

This just highlights the disconnect in our democracy. It's not like only black teenagers don't participate. Almost no young people participate in politics or any sort of activity that can affect change.

As economists say everything is about incentives. What incentive at all is there for any young person to be an activist?

Before college young people are in school 5 days a week plus sports or volunteer activities to put on college applications. What time they do have free they spend trying to relax. People talk about how lazy kids are and how all they do is watch TV and play video games but that's just not true for most kids. K-12 schools place an ever increasing burden of learning on doing work outside school. My parents never had to do homework from the minute they got home until bedtime with maybe a hour or two to spare on a light night.

After college these same kids are unable to find quality work or any job at all and are forced to live at home or in a home with huge numbers of roommates. They are wallowing in debt and spend their free time looking for work or trying to ignore their plight with distractions in the form of entertainment.

They are all raised to treat anything that isn't about making money as unimportant and last I checked attending town hall meetings doesn't pay very all. It's no coincidence that old white people show up. They have the luxury of free time and ample resources.

More important than the economics of being young in America, they are almost all hyper aware of the corruption and systems of control in modern society. Students have no voice whatsoever in their education. Twenty something's have no voice in their job (if they are lucky enough to have one). When they speak up they are not even shot down but either marginalized or ignored.

I can already hear the older members here going "damn straight they have to put their time in" but that's ridiculous. The younger generations are the single most educated group of humanity so far but are given no opportunities to employ it.

This is why people think kids are dumb. They're not dumb but lack wisdom. They lack wisdom because they were never given a chance to explore, make mistakes, or challenge authority. Their opinions are based on what they've been fed by whoever influences them most.

I know I've rambled which I'm wont to do so I'll just summarize. Picture yourself as a young person now (if you aren't one). Your whole life you've been aggressively controlled and marketed to. The same adults who control these processes are regularly shown to be self serving liars. Anytime I've seen a young person ask a difficult question of a teacher or boss the adult argues not based on truth but based on the goal they have in mind. Sometimes they are right but because young people are smart they regularly will make a point that can't be argued against. When this occurs the adult responds with some version of "that's just how it is so shut up and deal with it". This response is sometimes reasonable but not always. It can range in tone from polite to aggressive. In rare situations this can create cause tension or reprisal. I actually lost hours at a job once in retaliation for pointing out a clear and obvious failing with a particularly lazy manager's way of doing things. If you raise an entire generation to be intelligent and independent you shouldn't be surprised if they question failings. When these same educated/confident kids become apathetic because of that it's not shocking. It's basic economics.