Calling All Apologists: Apathetic Anthem Undercuts Young-Voter Engagement

It never fails.

Even now, about four years after John Mayer released his defeatist anthem ‘Waiting on the World to Change,’ any appearance of the song sends me into a blistering, scornful attack on current pop music.

‘Now we see everything that’s going wrong with the world and those who lead it,’ the crooner sings. ‘We just feel like we don’t have the means to rise above and beat it.’

But his absurd — and fairly happy-go-lucky — justification of apathy doesn’t stop here. He goes on to profess that ‘It’s hard to beat the system when we’re standing at a distance.’

And ‘if we had the power to bring our neighbors home from war, they would have never missed a Christmas,’ Mayer tells us.

‘ … It’s not that we don’t care; we just know that the fight ain’t fair,’ he continues later. ‘So we keep on waiting … waiting on the world to change.’

Guess what. We do have the power to bring our neighbors home from war — if we want to.

Another newsflash: we have the means to beat the world’s wrongs. It’s called representative government, and it works only if we will it to do so.

Mayer, a heart-throb type surely known better for his rhythm and melodies than for his intellectual prowess, wrote the ‘Waiting’ lyrics himself. He has been quoted as saying that the song reflects a common sentiment in Generation Y — my generation — that its attempts at activism are often ineffective and unnoticed.

Don’t take this the wrong way: I’m not here to analyze Mr. Mayer’s shallow attack on our country’s recent military action.

No matter your sentiments on the wars in the Middle East, certainly we can unite to agree that Mayer’s words are depressingly dangerous, particularly to young people.

Just a few decades ago, the parents of Generation Y’ers not only recognized their political power; they seized and wielded it with energy and relish. Many of the great popular musicians of the 1960s and 1970s didn’t shy away from politics, as many of today’s microphone-equipped bozos do.

No, they used their freedoms to mobilize, to energize. They saw the power of music to move people.

They didn’t sit around lamenting that people weren’t involved, giving them an excuse to sit out from representative government. Musicians were instrumental in igniting awareness, in telling people there was more to life than ‘waiting on the world to change.’

The engaged political enthusiasm of the ’60s and ’70s is more than anecdotal. In 1972, the first year when 18- to 20-year-olds were able to vote, 55 percent of eligible voters under age 30 cast ballots, according to a USA Today report.

But by 1996, young-voter turnout rates in presidential-election years had dipped to some 37 percent, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).

Turnout among young voters shot back up to the 50-percent range for the 2008 presidential election. But by last year, it had fallen again, dipping as low as 17 percent in Virginia and 19 percent in New Jersey, CIRCLE reported.

On the University Park campus this spring, turnout in the primary elections was nothing short of embarrassing. At the HUB-Robeson Center polling place, where 2,195 voters are registered, nine people showed up.

Nine.

NINE!

Especially given those abysmal figures — well, my generation needs a Bob Dylan, a Joni Mitchell, someone — nearly anyone — other than Mayer, apologist for the apathetics.

This isn’t about espousing a particular political philosophy or point of view. It’s about empowerment, engagement, helping people to recognize and use their own power — regardless of how they see the world.

Until today’s popular musicians go that route, I’ll be finding other inspiration.

And waiting on them to change.