The construction of political apathy

[Margaret Tarbet <tarbet@swaa.com>]

from
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/InYourHead/allinyourhead.html

In her 1998 book, Avoiding Politics: How Americans Produce Apathy in
Everyday Life, Eliasoph met with people around the country to find
out why they weren’t more engaged in political issues and events.
She found that it’s all about power. 

"People are afraid to talk about politics because they think that,
aside from raising conflict and being sort of scary, it will make
them feel powerless," she says. "The more you talk about politics,
the more you get discouraged and the more powerless you feel. People
are sort of assuming that talking won’t do any good."

That’s why some of us, even if we have opinions on the impeachment,
simply tune it out. "It’s better to say, ‘I haven’t been paying
attention one bit,’" Eliasoph says. "That way you won’t seem foolish
for thinking that your opinion makes a difference."  But those who
do talk freely discover that’s not the case at all. After all,
people getting together for discussion leads to action, she says,
and that’s "what makes democracy tick."

Does talking lead to action?