The politics of “I don`t care”

I wrote yesterday about “the inexistent Food crisis” and why people should give it more food for thought when it comes to food crisis and governing their own capacity of surviving a crisis.

Now, I would like to go beyond this and see why people don`t care about (food) politics.

From where I stand, I can see four types of people:

– the “follower”: a person who is either a member or sympathizer of a political party, ideology and is always up-to-date with what`s happening in the political arena. The follower will always express an opinion in line with the party line and vote with the same candidates each time;

– the “revolutionary”: a person with strong political views that is always up-to-date with what`s happening in the political arena, but who will always be against with what is proposed by the persons governing at present time. This person will always give a vote of “no confidence” in the elections by cancelling the ballot;

– the “independent”: a person with mixed political views. This person will vote or comment based on facts, not promises. If facts are not provided no vote is cast;

– the “indecisive”: a person with little political knowledge that can be easily influenced. This person will rarely vote.

Surfing the web, you will come across a wide variety of forums, social networks and blogs where people are talking about how awful the governance in their country is, how “incredible” is the European Union and the austerity imposed on our countries by the “Troika”.

The four types of people I just mentioned can be easily seen. You can see people defending a certain political ideology (“liberals” screaming for liberalization of markets or “socialists” asking for the state to intervene in improving the well-being of the citizen), you can see people stating that everything is wrong and we should change to …(they just ask for change without giving a solution for what comes after the change) and you can even see people arguing with facts and figures options that can be put in place (giving alternatives to measures that have already been implemented, but also giving options for the future). And there is the huge group of commentators that says “I don`t care anymore” (without expressing a view, without saying if something is good or bad).

If you factor in bad governance and the depreciation of human well-being around the world with the politics of “I don`t care” you can see a direct link. Although many would think that the “followers” and the “independents” constitute a huge proportion of the population with voting rights and, thus, determine the future of a country, the “indecisive” determine our future.

In most countries around the world (and especially in Europe), about 45-50% of the population goes to vote (followers, revolutionaries and some independents). The bulk (about 50%) are the indecisive, which “don`t care anymore” about who governs the country because “they are all the same“.

In my opinion, despite democracy offers you freedom of speech and the internet offers everybody the place to do it, people don`t have the right to complain about bad governance if they don`t vote/ask for a change.

Followers should become active thinkers and process the ideologies in which they have put their faith into through a constructive criticism process. All political ideologies have good and bad things and it depends on the people that implement them to make the best out of each.

Revolutionaries should stop asking for a revolution. Not everything is bad as they say. If they want a better world they should first offer an alternative.

Independents should weigh their options not only based on facts and figures, although these should constitutes the foundation of any decision, but also on their instinct.

The indecisive should start caring. It is up to them to make a difference.

If all these types of people decide to care about the future of their local community, country, region, than we shouldn`t worry about crises anymore. We would have the means to prevent them.