Standing
out in the spectrum of this year's Fourth-of-July themed commentary was Eitan
Hersh's particularly pointed op-ed in last Sunday's NY Times Sunday Review,
entitled "The Problem With Participatory Democracy Is the
Participants." – a provocative title in this contemporary era when we are
increasingly disposed to blame everything that’s wrong either on systems and
institutions or on other people but never on ourselves.
Hersh contends that many Americans engage in what he unflatteringly labels political hobbyism: "Americans
who live in relative comfort are emotionally invested in politics, especially
after the election, but in a degraded form of politics that caters to the
voyeurism of news junkies and the short attention spans of slacktivists. They
are engaging in a phenomenon I call 'political hobbyism.' They desperately want
to do something, but not something that is boring, demanding or slow."
Most of us can probably recognize of whom and of what he speaks. Hersh in any case offers sufficient examples. The ultimate problem, as he sees it, "is that hobbyism is replacing other forms of participation, like local
organizing, supporting party organizations, neighbor-to-neighbor persuasion,
even voting in midterm elections — the 2014 midterms had the lowest level of
voter participation in over 70 years."
And we all have seen where the tendency of so many - especially younger voters - not to vote has left us! Not voting, of course, has been a perennial problem in this country and keeps getting worse. It is all part of a larger phenomenon of increasing individual detachment from - and consequent lack of support for - institutions of all sorts.
Hersh warns "that an unending string of activities intended for instant
gratification does not amount to much in political power." Politically concerned citizens should ask "whether their emotions and energy are contributing to a behind-the-scenes
effort to build local support across the country or whether they are merely a
hollow, self-gratifying manifestation of the new political hobbyism."
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