The 24-hour news cycle, with its constant stream of tragedies, joys and monumental shifts in the world, is tiring and nearly impossible for anyone to follow. People are busier than ever. Work life and constant social connection leave little emotional bandwidth. It is not often that one finds time to worry about the conditions in El Salvador’s prisons, but nonetheless, those conditions exist.
Living in rural Indiana, the idea that what is happening in the world will have a major impact on an individual’s life can seem far-fetched. The mass compilation of someone’s behavioral and movement data for the purposes of marketing is not a worry. Why would anyone care about a random teenager? The same system could also be used for elimination and tracking on a political basis. The breaching of the right to due process may not affect a normal citizen for their entire life. Then, a person, out of spite, declares that citizen a terrorist, and they are imprisoned for life with no trial.
The world is not this dystopian yet, but in lowering one’s head and continuing on every day, it is easy to lose sight of the state of the world. Over the years, thousands of small events will lead to changes that are so monumental that the past is unrecognizable. If the immediate present is the only focus, the rest of reality becomes malleable. If the President says climate change is not real, then the record-breaking temperatures are simply a random heat wave that will pass. The thousands of homes destroyed in a hurricane are just an unfortunate fact of life.
When the general population stops pushing back, authoritarian regimes run free. In the United States, it is the job of the people to provide power to their government. If the people stop paying attention to what the government is doing, they relinquish their ability to protect their rights and prevent the suppression of civil liberties. It can be challenging to stay informed about issues, especially if they are smaller or not covered by mainstream media. The consequence of not caring is that nothing changes. If no one speaks up, then the world will stay the same. When people do speak up, it is the duty of the citizens to pay attention to their warnings and concerns.
Taking a small amount of time out of a day to look at the national and local news can be hard. News is often viewed as biased, inflammatory and depressing. This may be true, but the most important thing someone can do is pay attention. Pay attention to the injustices, pay attention to the suppressions of speech, pay attention when immigrants are unlawfully deported. Because if no one pays attention, nothing will ever change.
