Generation apathetic
VERONICA HEFNER, Senior Staff Writer
Driving to dinner one night, my friends and I discuss where to eat. After asking everyone in the car, I determine the general consensus: "I don’t care." Obviously a decision of where to dine does not require as much care and consideration as does a choice like where to attend college, but it highlights the tip of a much bigger iceberg. Our generation exerts apathy more readily than it does passion.
When did our generation become so disenchanted with passion? How did the term "easygoing" become synonymous with the adjectives "normal" and "cool?" Our circuits are overloaded with the numerous extracurricular activities that contemporary youths must complete. Instead of being an expert baseball player who knows every baseball statistic, wears a favorite team cap, and begs his dad to attend major league games, a "normal" boy will play football in the fall, basketball in the winter, soccer in the spring, and golf in the summer. He’ll get so tired and nonplused about sports that when his dad asks him if he wants to go see a Dallas Cowboys game, he’ll sigh and say, "I don’t care."
Few people seem to get passionate about anything. If you show more than an average, nonchalant interest in something – you’re labeled a fanatic fruit loop.
Last week at a TU men’s basketball game, I had a chance to glance around the student section. Frankly, what I saw was pathetic. Students filled just two-thirds of the section, and only one-third of those people actually wore their blue "Eye of the Hurricane" shirts. Our basketball team was ranked in the Top 25 earlier this year, but our students don’t deserve a team with that ranking. Not only does the university administration give us free tickets to every sporting event, it also hands out free T-shirts to wear at the games. Students care more about their appearance at the games than they do about supporting the team with a unified student section. And this is a team that wins games on a regular basis. I won’t even go into the student support of other TU sports teams.
It’s not just sports. Even if we blame our lack of sports enthusiasm on the fact that TU is an academic school, we can attend an average class and see we aren’t enthusiastic about learning, either. We should get upset when a professor assigns student presentations every class period so that he/she never has to teach. We should be mad if we discover the professor will not be lecturing every time the class is scheduled to meet. We aren’t passionate about anything, besides maybe partying on the weekends. I’ve never been to a university sponsored event that accommodated as many outgoing, laughing people as does a Thursday night party at a fraternity house.
Not only do we refrain from getting excited about anything on this campus, young people across the nation rarely get incensed. Maybe I’m idealistic and totally clueless, but I thought it used to be the norm rather than the exception for people to stand up and fight against ludicrous policies. For a totally random example, why are we rolling over like dead dogs and allowing the United States Postal Service to jack up the prices of stamps? In 1962, it cost four cents to mail a letter. Today, it costs 37 cents. According to the inflation rate as reported by Consumer Price Index, a first-class stamp should only cost 24 cents. We are overpaying by 13 cents! For a college student, this is significant. It’s a package of Ramen noodles, for goodness’ sake. Maybe I’m going postal, but I think this is ridiculous. Yet, no one fights it.
Or during the 2000 elections, for example, not a single political advertisement ran during a prime-time network broadcast of "Friends." Why? Young people watch "Friends," and young people don’t vote. In New York, only five percent of the eligible 18-29 year-olds turned out to vote. The only ray of hope we can glean from that statistic is that our generation isn’t to blame for electing Hilary Clinton to the U.S. Senate.
Now if that comment irritates any of my leftist, liberal readers, sit down and write a letter to the editor, waste an amazing 37 cents, and mail it. But before you do, remember I didn’t write an article condemning the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Whatever you do, be passionate. Don’t just sit back and say, "I don’t care." Sources: USPS, www.neglection2000.org
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