Youth and Apathy in these modern times

Every generation changes the face of its society. Even so, the worldwide youth of today seem to be breaking with their respective traditions. This is as true in Spain as anywhere else. The two socio-political worldviews I laid out in the last post, socially conscious romanticism versus traditional conservatism, are both under siege from arguably the most potent mindset of them all: apathy. I say potent because apathy has the power of prevention, the power to preclude other mindsets or opinions by preemptively rendering them uncool, pointless, unworthy of attention.

Apathy, of course, is generally a reaction and not a state of equilibrium. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and a vacuum would be necessary for apathy to exist of its own volition. Rather, apathy comes about through a combination of disillusionment and overstimulation. The disillusionment, almost always, is with politics, the economic status quo, the established social and cultural traditions, or some other vestige of the “system.” Unfortunately, however, those who choose to show their dissatisfaction with any status quo by pretending to ignore it are merely feeding back into the cycle that they vainly distance themselves from. I can think of no historical example of a situation where widespread apathy was a primary cause of improvement.

Yet this is, in many ways, our generation’s defining struggle. We exist in something of a dichotomy, where our overexposure to politics either motivates us to form and advocate opinions or makes us shrug our shoulders in disgust. Simultaneously, the rampant overstimulation of today’s Western youth camouflages a choice between access (to information, to other people and ideas, to causes and organizations and cultures) and mere entertainment. And, once again, it is all too easy to choose entertainment, to slip smoothly into a cycle of stimuli that never produce a substantial or original reaction. So, I would argue, apathy is not self-sustaining phenomenon, but rather a product of individual and group reactions to an existing system.

In this sense, Spanish youth have caught on fast. Only 30 years into democratic politics, they are already tired of politicians. The parties are the basically the same, all the good parties are outlawed, none of it affects us anyways… the responses are the same in Spain as in the U.S. And those are from the people who even feel the need to explain why politics doesn’t interest them. The real “silent majority” are the people who absorb political news and world events the same way they absorb music, never really processing it or incorporating it into their lifestyle, opinions, or actions.

Despite this negative social commentary, there is something to be said for what the youth –apathetic or otherwise- does best: having fun. And, in the pursuit of fun (in the general sense), young people have a knack for breaking existing social barriers. So it is that everyday humor, whether crude or enlightened, can mask insightful social commentary or reveal actual cultural transformation. In the United States, humor belittling oneself, one’s country, or anything in between has long been the mainstream. In Spain, young people have a similarly iconoclastic irreverence for traditional aspects of Spanish identity or culture. Part of this is the result of the cosmopolitan cultural modernism that pervades Europe today, but part is simple self-deprecating humor on the part of young Spaniards.

Machismo, a very real part of Spain’s (and the rest of the Latin world’s) traditional character, is the target of humor as well as social policy initiatives (to be discussed in another post). The phrase “Macho Iberico,” is traditionally reserved for the toughest and manliest of Spanish men: the bullfighters, the futbolistas, the power brokers. Now, it is jokingly used to compliment a well-executed pour out of a wineskin (proffered by a friendly bartender), held at arm’s length to allow the trajectory of sweet and strong vino fino to arc through the crowded tapas bar and fill the pourer’s mouth without spilling a drop, to shouts of approval. If you guessed that this description is autobiographical and that I am a natural with a wineskin, you were correct (they asked me if I learned it from reading Hemingway). The ironic label of “macho iberico” also comes up in discussions of chest hair amongst twenty-somethings and comparisons of sandwich size between school children, among other situations.

As with any country’s generation of young people, Spanish youth have a façade of coolness, complete with loud music, motos and fast cars, name brand clothing, drugs and alcohol. And, as is true anywhere else, the combination of coolness and apathy can be downright toxic if it becomes the dominant norm for a country’s young people. Also prevalent among my Spanish peers, however, along with the humor, the fun, and the coolness façade, is a strong movement towards higher education, multilingualism, personalized careers, and internationalism. This highly motivated side of this generation here, inevitably, competes and contrasts with the apathy discussed above. It remains to be seen, therefore, what the outcome and impact of today’s Spanish youth will be. In the meantime, they are busy just living.