Recently, I watched the 2009 film “The Trotsky,” in which a young man who idolizes the eponymous Russian revolutionary attempts to unionize his public high school in Quebec. The film first caught my attention in light of my own socialist sympathies, but has since left me with the burning question – is it boredom or apathy?
Is it boredom or apathy that causes our country to veer wildly from horrific act of political violence to horrific act of political violence? Is it boredom or apathy that leads so many of our countrymen to spend their evenings mindlessly scrolling at home instead of getting out of the house and into their communities? Is it boredom or apathy that drives workers to tolerate their dehumanization on the clock rather than banding together for better pay and conditions?
Throughout the film, our Trotsky stand-in is faced with this question as he struggles to organize his peers. The choice between the two is boredom as sleep, from which one can be roused to action, and apathy, a dangerous illness that paralyzes the individual and prevents any further meaningful engagement with the world around them. The question is, I think, a timely one despite having been so central to a film that came out seventeen years ago.
Our own world has been shaken by a series of violent incidents as well in recent memory, including several high-profile assassinations, multiple school shootings, street violence perpetuated by ICE agents and a series of crimes against international law and humanity as the US kidnaps and murders foreign leaders while bombing innocent civilians.
Are we bored by this parade of death? Or merely apathetic to it?
Likewise, in another film I recently watched, entitled “Strangers in the Park,” we see an old man, a former communist activist, and his daughter arguing over their divergent ideals. He, well into his 80s, remains committed to the cause. She, having outgrown her youthful idealism, has settled into the life of an affluent real-estate agent. At one point, she accuses her father of fighting for “a dead revolution – can’t you see? Nobody cares!”
But is that question true? While statistics might seem to make the point, I doubt the human heart agrees.
Record numbers of Americans disapprove of the President and the country’s economic direction, and record numbers also support popular programs such as universal healthcare… yet the political reality hasn’t changed. Why? Why do so many of us stay home, stay silent or otherwise tune out when our active participation could make a difference? Have we really grown so callous to the suffering of our fellow men that we no longer care when employers lay off workers to save a dime? Do we no longer care when our communities wither and die around us, because it looks livelier on a balance sheet?
Perhaps, like our communist film-friends, we should all strive for a better world. A fairer world. A world that actually lives up to our democratic expectations because of our active involvement, as opposed to stagnating into cynicism and apathy.
As Marx would tell us, you have the world to win; if only you would rise and do something!
