Learned Apathy

So I'm thinking that apathy is learned.

I think apathy becomes learned, bred, and eventually ingrained through any number (or combination) of unaddressed, unchanged circumstances. Through the continued, consistent factors that eventually wears us down to the point of checking out.  And I believe this extends across all walks of life and environments, from work to school to the home. While I'm sure there are vastly more factors, the biggest ones I've seen so far include

• Those around you - co-workers, peers - just don't care anymore. Apathy becomes contagious.  Consider any moment, in work, in school, in life, when someone else was checked out. (An aside here may be the levels of employee engagement, from engaged - those who invest themselves in their work, to disengaged - those who show up, punch the clock, and head out, to the actively disengaged - who actively work against the company). Imagine those in either of the latter two categories you consider co-workers: you're doing the same job, the same pay, day after day. And even though you're invested - personally, financially - in the job, nothing changes. Why keep trying when so-and-so isn't? Why should I keep showing up on time when this other guy is consistently late and no negative repercussions seem to happen? (Although, rereading this, arguably the root of the issue doesn't sound like it's on your co-worker...) 
• Those above you - parents, teachers, managers - don't care either. Now apathy isn't just learned, but almost taught. We model those we look up to. And it's the same as above. But let's look at schools now. For those of you unfamiliar with Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin's teacher is a perfect of example of someone who's checked out and just counting the days until retirement. And in schools we also have to think about the impact of parents. If parent's don't care about their child's performance or actions, why would the child?
• Changing/shifting guidelines and expectations - when what you're told or what's expected of you is changed more frequently than not. The same goes for which things are priority: if everything is the most important thing, nothing is (Monday it's this thing, tomorrow it's this, Wednesday a third thing "just has to get done!", Thursday jumps back to Monday's priority, and by Friday directions just sound like parents in a Charlie Brown cartoon). 
• Being treated as inferior or the expectation of poor performance - I feel this one is rather self-explanatory. I do believe we rise to the level expected of us, for better or worse. Of course, the caveat is that the person has the knowledge, tools, resources, and support to rise to the expectations set for them. So I suppose an addendum would be that the combination of high expectations and low support, ability, and authority to actually do anything is, in essence, setting someone up to fail. And what would be a logical conclusion from there...? For more information, check out the results of Robert Rosenthal's 1964 experiment, as well as the Pygmalion Effect.

I do believe that people want to do well and be proud of their work and the results they can affect. But somewhere, at some point in our lives, we learn to just phone it in. The question then becomes, how can we reverse the trend?

The Necessity of Captialsim

Thought experiment time:

Suppose everyone in the country woke up tomorrow with an extra $10,000 in the bank (or in a shoebox under the mattress).  What would happen?  Well, everyone would probably go out and buy stuff, pay off loans, and generally flood the market with cash.  Once flooded, supply and demand kicks in as the supply of goods and materials can't keep pace with the demand for them, everything becomes more rare (because it's all gone) and prices sky-rocket as demand soars.  It's the simple reason the government can't just print more money to pay off our federal debt.  Now everything's more expensive because we all have more money, and now we have to spend the same relative amount of cash to attain the same good as we did yesterday.  Now take that same situation and spread it out over a year.  What would happen if every single person made $50,000 a year?  Same end.

See, one of the main concepts of capitalism is that some people need to be poor in order for it to work.  If everyone had job security, no one would worry about losing their jobs (duh).  Sounds common sense, but, alas, it really isn't.  With 100% employment, there's no real worry about getting canned because, number one, there's no one to fill your position, and number two, you could just walk next door and get a job.  No one wants that.  If everyone made $50,000 (a low amount to many, I realize), new cars and houses would no longer be status symbols.  And we all know how much people love their status symbols (read: egos).

This post admittedly was inspired by an article I just read, as 2014 marks the 50-year anniversary of LBJ's war on poverty in which he aimed at raising all impoverished American's into the working middle class. But, again, it really isn't that easy, is it? Consider, if you will, the ramifications of all American's getting a college degree (I say "getting" because it's fairly clear many are rubber stamped...I mean, the Seahawks cornerback, now famous for his tirade after the win over the 49er's in the team's eventual Superbowl-winning season - who, by the way, I'm sure is unfairly maligned and probably truly does good in his community - holds a degree from Stanford. Yes, Stanford.). Anyway, back to the point. If everyone, every single person in the country held a degree, what happens next? We're all told to go to college to get a good job and make a decent living. But if everyone does that exact thing, suddenly graduate degrees become the new bachelors. Which is more or less already happening anyway. Go figure.

So again, we have the necessity of inequality. After all, the basic tenet of capitalism is to turn a profit. If the business owner(s) recognize a greater profit can be realized by closing a factory, they have the total power to do so. If they find that a greater profit can be had by paying employees as little as possible for as few hours as possible, then by all means. So I believe the real question, then, comes down to: can the government impose job creation?  I would say not a chance. Obviously we've been trying for quite some time, and can certainly see the vast difference it makes. So it comes, again, to those with the financial sway. And I doubt that will change anything anywhere any time soon.