As for this appeal to authority nonsense, this isn’t the Oxford Union. I was appealing to evidence and experience. Whether from the point of view of a teacher, or from the point of view of an activist who five months ago marched beside a thousand people under thirty for jobs, or the grown-up version of the student whose life in school witnessed the re-emergence of mass political engagement, through the anti-war movement. Young people aren’t, in my experience, apathetic.

And this creates the problem of understanding the link between politicians and their prospective audience, or lack of link. Sian’s view is that the bar for engagement is set too high – that young people are too stupid to understand things. Apart from being offensive, and I quoted the bit about Oxford students above, it’s rubbish. The disconnection between politicians and young people is much more important than that – but by pushing this dead end, you wind up with the comments over there to the effect that “we don’t want people who won’t consider the issues to vote”.

So on those grounds I find what Sian said to be rubbish.

‘A recent rave thrown to raise money for Haiti raised more than £10,000, with 3,000 clubbers signing up to the website to find out what else they could do to tackle poverty.’

Read the latter half of the sentence. I think that’s pointing towards a bit more than simply that one instance of passing engagement.

And I don’t see a contradiction there, no. She states that the political actors aren’t communicating in a way that she or other young people understand or can be bothered to put the effort in to understand, and therefore of course she knows comparatively little about said political actors. I don’t think you can reasonably argue that when bad communication is at fault then you should blame the person to whom the idea is being communicated.

And I don’t believe she said or even implied that they don’t care about any issues. She seems to me to be arguing simply that the way issues are presented by politicians and the popular media is inadequate to engage young people in such a way that they will vote; she never stated that they wouldn’t engage in any other way.

And forgive me, but I do feel it’s somewhat patronising to state that you ‘should know’ – although I agree with your point, that indeed young people do care about issues (and as I have just said, I don’t really think that’s the issue at debate here), I might point out that I’m 18 years old, currently in further education and preparing now for higher education.

Political participation amongst young people too is a passion of mine, and as a member of a local youth politics organisation I successfully composed and directed a workshop aimed at local secondary school students to try and engage them in politics and illustrate to them exactly how pervasive the subject is.
The workshop received almost unanimous praise from the students who participated.

Whilst I’m not particularly fond of this kind of political dick-waving and I don’t think it proves any particular point, I do wonder whether given this you could not try to play the ‘I know/teach young people so I know what they think’ card? It’s not a valid form of political debate (simply being the old appeal to authority dressed up slightly differently) and it gets quite tedious when all that basically happens is that you end up comparing qualifications.
I likewise will try to avoid it.

I think you’re misrepresenting Sian’s opinions here to be honest.
The article didn’t state that that was the only reason she wouldn’t vote or that any other young person wouldn’t vote; indeed it didn’t state that at all. It stated that she didn’t understand what the politicians are saying, which is an entirely different kettle of fish to not knowing much about politics.

As I keep saying, she’s highlighting an issue of communication, of understanding in one particular context – that of what politicians and the political press say.

As for the fact that politicians are repeating themselves everywhere, on radio, on TVs and in newspapers, I remember one of the early episodes of The Thick of It in which the minister is asked if he knows what a chav is. He clearly doesn’t and his colleagues repeat the word several times in the hopes that he’ll summon the answer up from somewhere. Of course, as he points out, just repeating the same thing at him will not in fact help if he doesn’t understand it.

You’re right in saying that by querying your own disengagement you have in fact then ended the disengagement, but simply because your disengagement is ended it doesn’t follow that you will be engaged in every sense and in every circumstance.

I don’t think claiming she hasn’t pulled her thumb out is nonsense.

I don’t believe voting to be the pinnacle of political engagement – quite the opposite.

But the activities of Ctrl.Alt.Shift are little different; people turn up to an event, then go home, having given a bit of money. Engagement is passing, just like the act of voting.

Even this wasn’t what was at issue with my criticism.

Do you not see the contradiction between someone saying they don’t know much about the political actors, saying that because of this they won’t vote (implying this is important) and then blaming it on the political actors?

In actual fact, there are more means of engagement than I can possibly count – and the first one is talking to your parents, or your teachers, or your friends and so on about issues which you care about. And young people have loads of issues they care about – they’re not apathetic, they just don’t vote. I should know – I teach loads of them, and whether it’s the hoody wearing kid who gets reported for graffiti or the best-behaved, they all care about stuff.

The reason they don’t vote, therefore, are infinitely more complex and more important than this twaddle about how Sian won’t vote because she doesn’t know much about politics makes out. Hence my outrage, because she was selling my generation short.

We don’t have literacy tests in this country for voting rights precisely because people don’t have to read reams and reams to understand politics, because it’s everywhere. Sian’s comment that she doesn’t know much about what politicians are saying is disingenuous because they’re saying it on every radio station, on every TV channel and in every newspaper…including the one she writes for.

That’s my second problem – the disingenuity of the piece.

I’m not castigating the disengaged for querying their own disengagement – but the irony is by questioning it, you’ve already ended it – and so all the different snipes (like about only Oxford students understanding half of the stuff online) is just posing.

I should probably point out that I wasn’t singling out your points, simply posting my comments on this blog post in particular because Adam White linked me to it. He also suggested that I share the link to my post here to explain my thoughts and reasoning; I genuinely apologise if it came across as link trolling or spamming, and I’d have no objection if you decided to excise them from my comments. Your blog, your rules.

As it is though, whilst I’m not singling you out I do feel that your points are negative and condescending, although scarcely worse than any others I’ve read.

Complaining that she hasn’t ‘pulled her thumb out and becoming involved in politics’ is nonsensical. She has. She quite clearly states one way in which she has. Reading various reports and voting are not the only way of getting involved in politics, though we might prefer the latter especially to take precedence.

And though it’s an irrelevant point as she does participate in the political process and has every right to ‘nark about something intensely political’, it seems a very strange idea that we should abuse and castigate the 40% of the population who don’t vote when they dare express an opinion on political apathy.

And though it’s been overtaken in vitriol on my own part, I’d like to apologise once more for the links. If you’ve taken it in a way that I didn’t intend then I am genuinely sorry.

PS: If you think my points are ridiculously negative and condescending, then I suggest you outline why you think so, so I can respond – otherwise it’s just ad hominem nonsense. If that’s all you have to offer, piss off and link troll somewhere else.

I don’t know whether it’ll help you understand the point of view better or not. I hope so. I certainly hope you’ll stop abusing her as much as you generally have done as a result, though.

I’ve outlined my thoughts here. A sort of rant about ranting about what is, after all, only someone’s effort to identify a problem and then identify a solution to said problem.
http://humanistagenda.org/danielrm/2010/03/participation-and-politicos/

And just a thought – if what’s angered you all is that her article is patronising and condescending to young people, then why don’t you target some of the comments as well?

People there are arguing for the disenfranchisement of the young, generalising their thoughts on this one young woman to the entire generation she’s a part of and are generally behaving like complete pricks.

And there’s a hell of a lot more of them than her.