Apathy in society - Not caring costs us far too much

It is difficult to understand the soul-deep motivations of a society, or the principles that inform it, when a household charge can provoke a “national rally” while the confirmation that the most powerful political party in our recent history was a shameless cabal of crooks does little more than stir up the usual impotent outrage from the usual sources.

It would be reassuring to use last year’s electoral humiliation of Fianna Fáil to reject that argument but, let’s not pretend again, that whipping was provoked by economic not moral or ethical collapse.

The Mahon Report generated a lot of high dudgeon but — like our banking crisis — little direct, dissuasive action. Experience suggests that we would be unwise to take comfort in the idea that it is early days yet. After all, the tribunal first sat 15 years ago.

Surely it was worth at least a “national rally” to insist that the days of bribery and pious sanctimony must end forever? A national rally to insist that we’ve had enough of crooks and liars posing as politicians or developers?

Inevitably the brown-envelope culture will recognise that the popular response to their unmasking was muted compared to that provoked by the €100 tax. They may also conclude that the risk of not implementing much-championed political or constitutional reform is not as great as some might hope.

This apathy does not make it any easier for those in Government today who are pledged to pushing through the kind of legislative change that might give real force to anti-corruption legislation, the kind of legislation that might provide for the seizure of the pensions and property of politicians found to have acted corruptly.

It is possible too that this popular apathy is at the root of the less than inspiring support given to whistleblowers who pointed out corrupt politicians and developers for the gardaí. As more time is given to considering Mahon, this policing failure has emerged as one of the most worrying issues and it must be confronted. It has certainly undermined confidence in the force.

Apathy can cascade through a society destroying as it goes, and, as a new report from the Educational Research Centre (ERC) at St Patrick’s College in Dublin reveals, it may be a factor in the fall in educational achievement amongst some of our children.

The ERC has concluded, in another startling metric of dysfunction in Ireland, that falling literacy and numeracy standards amongst teenagers has as much to do with apathy as inability. They conclude that “don’t care” may be as influential, if not more so, than “can’t do”. If this is the case then an education system already struggling with resource issues faces an even greater, far more daunting challenge than most of us would have imagined. After all, why should a disinterested school child bother to conform when disgraced political leaders ignored the rules with impunity?

Every society, like every business, operates in a culture set by its leaders. We have accepted poor standards and must work to re-establish the mores that will allow us to believe in politics — and convince “don’t care” schoolchildren that they, like the rest of us, will be the ultimate victims of their own apathy.