Bliss ... Tom Siklic, left, and Stuart Morton are part of the South Park Conservative generation. Picture: David Geraghty
Posted on 06/02/2005 8:32:02 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
"IT'S not that I don't care on purpose," says 17-year-old Tom Siklic, "it's just that I don't care." Tom, a Melbourne Year 12 student, typifies his generation's shoulder-shrugging attitude to global warming and logging of old-growth forests.
"Ignorance is bliss," he says.
Apathy and scepticism among Australian teenagers has identified them as part of a global backlash generation labelled the South Park Conservatives.
According to the author of South Park Conservatives: The Revolt Against Liberal Media Bias, Brian C. Anderson, teenagers are more attuned to the bad attitudes of the animated characters created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker than to those of their liberal parents.
They are more likely to ridicule social guidelines for politeness towards women, minorities, the disabled and disadvantaged and less likely to enroll to vote.
New research released yesterday on Australian attitudes across all generations supports the theory that adolescents are not as green as their parents.
Only 41 per cent of 14- to 17-year-olds call themselves environmentalists, compared with 75 per cent of baby boomers in the 60 to 64 age group, who were at the forefront of political activism. Advertisement:
The new report blames youth's fading idealism on John Howard's environmental scepticism.
Drawing on a poll of 56,344 people, the Australia Institute's report on this generational divide says "Howard's Children are characterised by apathy and scepticism", despite the focus given to environmental threats by schools and the media.
The youngest teenagers and the over-65s are weakest in their environmental activism, countering a national awareness that intensifies as people move through life.
Despite his own apathy, Tom Siklic says his family recycles glass and plastic, but like 27 per cent of the 14- to 17-year-olds interviewed by Roy Morgan Research, he believes threats to the environment are exaggerated.
Fellow skateboarder Stuart Morton, 19, is more passionate, in line with the poll's finding that 54 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds demonstrate more environmental concern than younger Australians.
"I don't think the threats are overdone," he said. "I care about the environment, about pollution and forests."
Is South Park even that popular in Australia?
Just out of curiousity, what age range would that be? Wondering if I make the cut. :-)
My guess it would be around 1982 or so, after Generation X. I was born in 1983.
You can crawl back home
say you were wrong,
stand out in the yard
cry all night long.
Well go ahead and water my lawn.
My give a damn's busted.
I really wanna care,
I wanna feel somethin'
Let me dig a little deeper...
Nope...
Sorry...
Nothin'
You can say you've got issues.
You can say you're a victim.
It's all your parents fault,
After all you didn't pick em
Well maybe Oprah's got time to listen.
My give a damn's busted.
(*Well let me get this straight now)
Your therapist said
It was all just a phase
A product of the prozac
And your co-dependent ways
So uhh ... who's your enabler these days
My give a damn's busted.
I really wanna care,
I wanna feel somethin'
Let me dig a little deeper...
Eeh-Eeh
(*Oh you're tellin' me)
It's a desperate situation,
No tellin' what you'll do.
If I don't forgive you,
You say your life is through.
Well honey... give me somethin' I can use.
(My give a damn's busted.)
(*Ahh you knew I was gonna say that, didn't ya.)
My give a damn's busted (*ha ha)
My give a damn's busted
Honey trust me
My give a damn's busted yeahhh ...
OOOH
My give a damn's busted yeahhh
(*You wanna do what?)(*ha ha ha ha ha)
My give a damn's busted
(*Get the party started thats what we'll do)
My give a damn's busted
(*I'm not done honey, trust me)
My give a damn's busted
(*Been there, done that)
My give a damn's busted
My give a damn's busted
- Jo Dee Messina
I don't know sure. But I think so.
Gotta love the spin on this article. Environmentalism and recycling and all the greenie weenie garbage, by default = good. Conservative = rude to women and your elders.
Every time I think our media is the worst, I look at some of the media in other countries, and I feel a little better. Briefly.
}:-)4
Damn, missed it by a bit. I was born in 1977. But, trust me, the people my age enjoy South Park and are pretty conservative too. Heck, we were freshmen in college when it first came out on Comedy Central, I think.
Heh, well I don't agree that the cut-off for Generation X should be 1981, or so. Students from the late '70s appear to be much more conservative than those from early '70s. I dunno why.
South Park Conservatism is best defined by a cyncism for "feel good", ineffective liberalism.
Issues like the environment are not the major issues anymore. Not because they aren't important, but because we've solved the urgency of the problem, made new advances in science, and implemented environment friendly policies for industry and commerce.
So shouting that the sky is falling isn't going to work anymore. Time for the liberals to find a new rallying cry and to climb out of the 60's and 70's, where they apparently lived their greatest moments.
LOL, that was me when I was a student at a public high school. Can't exactly blame me for being that way! :-P
The writer of the article simply misunderstands the proper expression of apathy. Apathy in regard to BS is no vice.
-Peter Gibbons, Office Space
Bliss ... Tom Siklic, left, and Stuart Morton are part of the South Park Conservative generation. Picture: David Geraghty
...for liberal bullshit.
Also, another interesting thing about South Park Generation is that we refuse to be indoctrinated. So we're like f*ck it in dealing with liberal ideology.
"'Ignorance is bliss,' he says..."
That ain't how the quote goes, Junior.
"Yet ah! why should they know their fate,
Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies?
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more; where ignorance is bliss,
'Tis folly to be wise."
Thomas Gray
You know, I think I've learned something here today.
Issues like the environment are not the major issues anymore. Not because they aren't important, but because we've solved the urgency of the problem, made new advances in science, and implemented environment friendly policies for industry and commerce.
So shouting that the sky is falling isn't going to work anymore. Time for the liberals to find a new rallying cry and to climb out of the 60's and 70's, where they apparently lived their greatest moments.
[Well said coconutt2000.]
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