Disillusionment, participation and the purpose of voting

am often asked, as a result of the work I do, why I believe young people do not vote, or participate in any large numbers with the civic events around us. I have given many answers, since many are true. I am likewise asked why they should vote, or participate at all. And the answer here is close to my heart. The following thoughts attempt to answer both. Welcome to my column.

Writing as the Federalist, No. 10, James Madison described the imperfect nature of his new government: "Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens ... that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority."

Madison might well have been commenting on the current political scene. Two vehicles of public manipulation, political opportunism and media influence, have distorted the democratic process in the pursuit of their respective interests: Victory and audience. Of the various social groups divided along traditional lines-ethnic, gender, age-young people are most injured by this. The state of public affairs is, after all, a direct link to the future. When our government fails to address the concerns of its people today, it attenuates this link by creating uncertainty and disillusionment. The young, scarred by this betrayal, will feel its sting in the years to come. It will inflict itself upon every decision they make, every problem they attempt to solve, every goal they dare to establish.

The young know of the multitude of opinions, concerns, ideas and necessities this diverse country holds. If ours were simply not addressed, it would be possible to cling to an ideology. We would convince ourselves that our representative, and those attempting to represent us, had so many interests to attend to, that our own were factored in to the common good; not solved, perhaps, in the manner we might choose, but addressed in the least. If we managed to convince ourselves as such, we might even participate. We might even vote. But we do not, in large numbers, do either. And we do not because we are betrayed. And we are betrayed not simply because we are unheard, but because we are not even asked. This is why we do not vote.

The young see voting as a payment. To us it is our charge to those who might govern. We expect something in return: consideration, gratitude in the form of attention. We have our particular concerns: salaries, education, in recent years gender and race equality, AIDS and the environment. These are important to us because they will each effect our daily lives when today's leaders live no longer. Our government has specialists, task forces, even whole departments dedicated to these issues because they overlap with the concerns of an average citizen. Their importance to young people is incidental. Since we see voting as a payment, and since we do not feel compensated, we feel robbed. Our issues have been stolen to finance electoral victory. We tell ourselves to live and learn, and we lock our doors. We feel like victims assigned random numbers, statistics-incidental.

If our disillusionment is the result of a theft, today's media are those assigned to bring justice. Reporters, commentators, analysts, affiliates and corporations have not only failed in this task, but have conspired in the cover-up. Good stories bring good money, and good money brings power. Americans are told, in the form of news updates and analysis, who is politically in vogue, and which issues are important. To the young, this only aids the ignorance of those who purport our representation. We see good men and women - our men and women - battered and destroyed by an information giant. Furthermore, real ideas and real solutions are abandoned because they do not fit into a news segment or a sound bite. No, real hopes swell and multiply. They cannot be confined to a television set or a hard drive. They burst bandwidth of all diameters, and satellites cannot transmit them. The information highway was built for today's young: a path to a great future. We do not want it.

And so we do not vote, and it is a shame. For voting, while the first course of change abandoned by the cynic, is also the last stronghold for what we crave. Voting is not a charge or a payment, it is not a favor or a donation. It is not always the means of accomplishment, but it is always an act of pure participation. Oliver Wendell Holmes said "it is required of a man that he should share the action and passion of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived."

This, in the end, is what we want: To participate in something real; to take part in a great event large and infinite. We want to change the world but we want others to want it too. A vote expresses this. A vote says that the problems we face are ours as they are yours, that success is a banquet to nourish us all, and that we will never cease to progress-as individuals and as peoples-no matter how abandoned we are today. A vote hopes, dreams, believes and expects. A vote does not cure disease, end hunger, bring races together, or end war. But it promises that someday humanity will.

So vote.

- Josh Cowen can be reached via

e-mail at jcowen@umich.edu.

Josh Cowen

Emphasis Mine