“You wake up in your room in the early morning. You take a shower and have breakfast. You leave home and take the bus. You arrive at school and listen to a lecture. After that you have lunch and tea time in a cafe. Then, you go back home by bus. You have dinner and do your assignments. Then you fall asleep.” This is the normal description of a university student’s life. Have you ever wondered how many things are decided by the political process in this ordinary life cycle? To wake up in your room, you need a dwelling place. Whether you are an owner or a tenant, you are influenced by politics. To take a shower, you need water. The water supply is determined by political decisions. To have breakfast, you need the ingredients to make a meal. The cost of ingredients is affected by productivity and shipping, which means by the process of politics. To take a bus conveniently, there should be a bus station near you and the bus should be on time. Bus operation intervals, routes, and the number of buses on the road are all determined by activities in the political arena. Going to university and to the cafes around a university are both related to politics. What about the electricity supply? Of course. Every part of human life is impacted by the political process. However, nowadays people are misguided in thinking that the politic process only happens in the National Assembly or among politicians. They think politics refers mostly to the huge decisions of nations like those made by the elections. However, politics exists in every single part of human life and if people know this, they will pay more attention to politics than they do now. Indifference toward everyday politics leads to indifference at all levels of politics. Due to the importance of politics, the Pharos dug into why young people have less interest in politics these days and the results coming from that lack of interest. In addition, we discuss how to

start to become interested in politics.

What is ‘politics’? In the dictionary, politics is defined as “The process of solving quarrels or disputes of interests or differences of opinions between people.” For example, imagine that there is person A and person B, who are living about 10 minutes apart. When a new bus station is planned, both A and B want the bus station to be built in front of their houses. However, the decision cannot satisfy only one side, so they agree that the bus station will be constructed an equal distance from each house. The example is not a perfect way to explain all about politics, but it is enough to let you understand what the core of politics is. As in the example, politics is closely related to every human life and actually, it is very significant. Although politics is extremely important, young people have much less interest in it than their elders. Why is that? The first reason is the seriousness of the concept of “politics.” Foundational education is carried out for 12 years from elementary school to high school. Throughout this education, it is very difficult to deliver the essence of politics in a fun and easy way to students, which tends to reduce their interest in politics. The evidence for this is that there is a test subject for the Korean SAT called “Laws and Politics,” and it is the least chosen test subject. Moreover, from middle school, politics is not handled as an individual or group matter but is considered only with regard to governments and nations. Thus, it is natural for these students, who are not eligible for elections, to get easily bored by politics. Boredom then leads to indifference. Second, so many things have already been agreed on in society that students find it difficult to get interested in politics. To start being interested in the politics of an individual, group or region, there must be issues directly related to the individual, but this society has already reached agreements about many essential parts of living. In other words, basic rights such as ones related to water, electricity, housing, traffic and other welfare subjects have already been negotiated. Also, things in need of further discussion may only be of interest to people in their 30s and above. In fact, whether every individual is involved in an agreement or not, the content of the agreement mostly consists of good things for all. This makes the young feel that their participation in politics is not necessary.

Third, young people purposely exclude politics from their lives because of the hypocrisy and irrational behaviors demonstrated by politicians. Nowadays, people in their twenties are not the lowest party when it comes to the voting rates. In the last presidential election in 2017, the turnout of voters in their twenties was 76.1%, which was more than for people in their thirties and forties. However, turnout and interest are not necessarily equivalent. Voters, especially young people in their twenties, have grown up watching the ridiculous behaviour of politicians. Maybe not all of them are shameless and despicable, but the majority of them really have proved themselves unworthy of respect by their actions. For instance, they fought with fists or tongues in the National Assembly because their interests collided with those of others. They criticized other politicians for their personal lives. They also got caught when they committed illegal activities in other countries. Even before the young begin to get interested in politics, the politicians cut every strand of attraction to politics with their disgusting news. Even though daily politics and big political events are different, young people’s lost attention to politics extends to politics in general. Fourth, the brutal reality of life stops the young from participating in daily politics. These days, the rate of unemployment is at its highest. Universities are considered to be just one of the careers that everybody has. People dream of a normal life, but in reality most of them have debt to pay off. Given these concerns, how could daily politics draw the attention of the young generation?