There are growing signs of indifference despite the democratic upsurge among young people and students against all forms of authoritarian power across the world. Who is indifferent, and why? Who benefits from the culture of indifference? Is it natural to be indifferent in an age of indifference? The Pew Research Center report, The Age of Indifference: A Study of Young Americans and How They View the News, published on 28 June 1990, reveals a generation gap in political awareness and engagement among Americans.
Contrary to the suggestion that young people are more engaged than older generations, the report found that young Americans knew less, cared less, read fewer newspapers, voted less, and were less critical of their leaders and institutions than young people in the past. This finding challenges the assumption that younger generations are necessarily more politically engaged or less indifferent than their elders. It also highlights the importance of understanding the social and political conditions that shape civic participation and political disengagement.
A similar study, Political Disengagement in the UK: Who Is Disengaged?, was published by the House of Commons Library on 30 September 2026. The research briefing, authored by Elise Uberoi and Neil Johnston, reveals a complex picture of political engagement across different age groups and social classes. It notes that some older age groups tend to have more negative attitudes towards politics and participate less in political activities, while younger people are less likely to register to vote, vote, or be elected.
The report also identifies greater political disengagement among people in unskilled, partly skilled, and skilled manual occupations than among those from other occupational backgrounds. These findings complicate simplistic assumptions about generational differences in political engagement. Read together, the reports from 1990 and 2026 highlight the enduring significance of social and political conditions in shaping democratic participation. The challenge is to understand how market-led politics and society reproduce indifference, and who benefits from a culture that weakens collective political engagement. The principal beneficiaries are the ruling classes and their crony-capitalist allies.
Participation in formal democratic processes and policymaking has faced persistent challenges over recent decades. Fundamentally, bourgeois democratic politics, increasingly subordinated to market imperatives, has failed to address people's needs and aspirations. A growing democratic deficit is accompanied by a crisis of trust. Trust in the state, government, political parties, and political leadership has dwindled because of the widening gap between promises and practices. Political parties and leaders have failed to empower people and ensure peaceful prosperity. These failures have been compounded by the politics and culture of depoliticisation over the last five decades, as capitalism has increasingly treated democratic politics aimed at empowering people as a threat to its own survival. Consequently, there has been a systematic campaign to depoliticise democracy in the name of ‘specialist intervention’ by technocratic policymakers and bureaucrats who often serve the interests of ruling elites and capitalist classes. The decline in democratic participation, therefore, cannot be understood simply as an accidental or natural development; it must also be examined in the context of sustained political and economic interventions over several decades.
Capitalist states and governments have used their power to create legal structures that restrict democratic movements, criminalise dissent, and brand leaders of democratic protest movements as anti-national. In the name of nationalism, undemocratic and authoritarian ruling classes and their right-wing henchmen undermine the conditions necessary for deepening democracy, protecting citizenship rights, advancing equality and liberty, and achieving distributive justice.
The eighteenth-century English writer, poet, playwright, and Anglican moralist Samuel Johnson famously remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Recorded by his biographer James Boswell in an entry dated 7 April 1775, the remark criticised the use of false patriotism as a cloak for self-interest. Johnson's statement was not a blanket condemnation of love for one's country; it was a critique of those who exploit patriotic sentiment for personal or political gain. It is therefore important to distinguish this historical context from later interpretations of the quotation. The claim that Johnson's remark was specifically directed at William Pitt, a fellow Tory prime minister of Britain, requires qualification. Nevertheless, the history of British colonialism offers a compelling context for examining the relationship between patriotism, wealth, and political power.
Participation in formal democratic processes and policymaking has faced persistent challenges over recent decades. Fundamentally, bourgeois democratic politics, increasingly subordinated to market imperatives, has failed to address people's needs and aspirations. A growing democratic deficit is accompanied by a crisis of trust. Trust in the state, government, political parties, and political leadership has dwindled because of the widening gap between promises and practices. Political parties and leaders have failed to empower people and ensure peaceful prosperity. These failures have been compounded by the politics and culture of depoliticisation over the last five decades, as capitalism has increasingly treated democratic politics aimed at empowering people as a threat to its own survival. Consequently, there has been a systematic campaign to depoliticise democracy in the name of ‘specialist intervention’ by technocratic policymakers and bureaucrats who often serve the interests of ruling elites and capitalist classes. The decline in democratic participation, therefore, cannot be understood simply as an accidental or natural development; it must also be examined in the context of sustained political and economic interventions over several decades.
Capitalist states and governments have used their power to create legal structures that restrict democratic movements, criminalise dissent, and brand leaders of democratic protest movements as anti-national. In the name of nationalism, undemocratic and authoritarian ruling classes and their right-wing henchmen undermine the conditions necessary for deepening democracy, protecting citizenship rights, advancing equality and liberty, and achieving distributive justice.
The eighteenth-century English writer, poet, playwright, and Anglican moralist Samuel Johnson famously remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”. Recorded by his biographer James Boswell in an entry dated 7 April 1775, the remark criticised the use of false patriotism as a cloak for self-interest. Johnson's statement was not a blanket condemnation of love for one's country; it was a critique of those who exploit patriotic sentiment for personal or political gain. It is therefore important to distinguish this historical context from later interpretations of the quotation. The claim that Johnson's remark was specifically directed at William Pitt, a fellow Tory prime minister of Britain, requires qualification. Nevertheless, the history of British colonialism offers a compelling context for examining the relationship between patriotism, wealth, and political power.
William Pitt's grandfather, Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras, acquired a celebrated diamond associated with the Kollur mines near the Krishna River in India. Known as the Pitt Diamond, it became a symbol of the immense wealth accumulated through colonial trade and imperial connections. The Pitt family's wealth and influence illustrate how colonial extraction helped shape political power in Britain. Johnson's criticism of false patriotism invites us to question the ways in which nationalist rhetoric can conceal exploitation and serve elite interests.
Rather than suggesting that Johnson's statement was deliberately transformed by an anti-democratic ruling apparatus into the phrase “politics is the last refuge of a scoundrel”, it is more useful to recognise how political rhetoric can be manipulated to legitimise power. In contemporary terms, one might argue that “right-wing patriotic politics is the last refuge of capitalist scoundrels” when patriotism is used to disguise exploitation and suppress democratic dissent.
Nationalism and patriotism are often combined by right-wing forces to dismantle democratic practices and uphold the interests of a capitalist system that breeds anti-democratic politics and an authoritarian political culture. Such a culture undermines people's democratic aspirations and dismisses their discontents. Democratic dissent is branded as anti-national and unpatriotic.
Nationalism and patriotism are often combined by right-wing forces to dismantle democratic practices and uphold the interests of a capitalist system that breeds anti-democratic politics and an authoritarian political culture. Such a culture undermines people's democratic aspirations and dismisses their discontents. Democratic dissent is branded as anti-national and unpatriotic.
These campaigns produce not only a culture of othering but also indifference rooted in differences of political, cultural, social, religious, and ideological views and positions. Differences are transformed into indifference towards the ‘other’ and, eventually, towards ‘each other’.
The systematic construction of difference and indifference serves the capitalist system by creating conditions conducive to a productivist culture of competition, consumerism, individualised pleasure, profit, and pain, while destroying the collective foundations of social life. The market, both as a process and as an institution, has expanded the commodification of labour, life, love, and livelihood.
This has deepened individualism, making alienation and indifference not merely outcomes of capitalist society but integral to its existence, foundations, and expansion. It is a society in which a few control wealth, leisure, and pleasure while many suffer under an exploitative and unequal order. The capitalist class benefits most from this culture of indifference. Capitalism promotes such a culture by producing atomised individual consumers whose identities are increasingly defined by commodities. Just as the culture of ‘my car’ contributes to the neglect of public transport systems, the pursuit of ‘my space, happiness, pleasure, utility, and satisfaction’ undermines the collective foundations of individual and social life. The result is an increasingly lonely and isolated individual whose personal fulfilment is detached from collective well-being.
In this society, young people suffer under a system they did not create. Despite the machinery of anti-politics and the relentless propaganda of depoliticisation, young people and students continue to take to the streets to reclaim their democratic rights. Indifference has become both a business strategy of capitalism and a mode of governance for ruling classes. It is easier to control and domesticate isolated individuals than organised groups. Consequently, there are systematic attempts to undermine the collective foundations of youth and student movements and desensitise their individual and collective civic sensibilities.
Systematic campaigns portray younger generations as deviant, drug-addicted, alcoholic, or lazy. Such narratives are designed to undermine the moral standing of young people and students, discredit their political aspirations, and weaken their capacity to revolt against exploitative power. Yet young people have historically been at the forefront of struggles for social, political, and economic change.
In this society, young people suffer under a system they did not create. Despite the machinery of anti-politics and the relentless propaganda of depoliticisation, young people and students continue to take to the streets to reclaim their democratic rights. Indifference has become both a business strategy of capitalism and a mode of governance for ruling classes. It is easier to control and domesticate isolated individuals than organised groups. Consequently, there are systematic attempts to undermine the collective foundations of youth and student movements and desensitise their individual and collective civic sensibilities.
Systematic campaigns portray younger generations as deviant, drug-addicted, alcoholic, or lazy. Such narratives are designed to undermine the moral standing of young people and students, discredit their political aspirations, and weaken their capacity to revolt against exploitative power. Yet young people have historically been at the forefront of struggles for social, political, and economic change.
From anti-colonial movements to contemporary anti-war campaigns and peace movements, young people have repeatedly mobilised to reclaim their rights and liberties. Their participation, however, should not be romanticised or treated as universal; rather, it demonstrates the enduring capacity of younger generations to challenge injustice and demand change. Young people continue to express a deep commitment to equality and justice in struggles across the world. Hope blossoms in the determination of youthful spirits to fight for and win a world of peace and prosperity.
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*Academic based in UK
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*Academic based in UK
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