A question for you: Name one successful person in whatever field of your choosing where apathy was the motivating factor which helped them achieve success? You have plenty of examples to choose from so it should be an easy answer.
I'm quite sure there are many studies with a left wing flavour to explain why some are successful while others aren't and why it's someone or something else's fault why they weren't successful but the common themes in the background of virtually all the success stories I've ever read is that personal ambitions and aspirations to achieve success were the overriding and primary motivating/driving factors behind every successful person's achievements. Apathy genuinely never figured in their success as far as I'm aware.
Thousands of people in the UK on a daily basis overcome adversity, prejudice, disability etc etc in order to achieve their life's ambitions and success. They don't let obstacles stand of the way of success and will find ways around them.
By the same token,, millions of less successful people will have had similar opportunities but failed to grasp/recognise or take up the challenge for a variety of reasons but an integral part of their failure will invariably be apathy. They give up at the first hurdle whereas the successful will continue until their goals are reached.
You can list a host of reasons why some people aren't successful but it isn't the fault of the successful why others fail to achieve.
That arguably applies to the vexed GFA question too! Each time I've been asked the question regarding the GFA on here it comes across as if the person asking the question doesn't actually believe themselves that it can be resolved.
If one believes that a problem/issues are insurmountable and can't be resolved then they won't be, it's termed apathetic or the other explanation is that they don't actually want the issue to be resolved which then fits their own agenda.
If the issues are to be resolved then it needs open-minded people with a forward thinking visionary approach to the problems with a view to resolving them not Luddites with their apathy believing that they can't be resolved.
Sorry but I don't think I'll ever fit into your negative 'oh woe is me' world.
That's taking another binary and only describing a single side.
The fact remains that
not all of those in "low paid jobs that anyone with half a brain could do" are in those jobs as a result of apathy.
There are several more factors at work here.
Another fact is that labelling studies as having a "left wing flavour" is nothing other than demonstrating a fundamental personal bias and bigotry.
You mentioned that education should be a lifelong endeavour, but my guess is that you favour a university education to be non-state funded?
There is also a fundamental cultural anchor at work in this country which weighs the mindset of UK Citizens down, and that is the issue of the Class System. Whereas, let's take France as an example, other nations had a Revolution in which all aristocrats were slaughtered, leaving behind a mindset of freedom, the UK still has at it's cultural root the idea of the supremacy of the Monarchy and that all laws are passed down from that Authority. (Other forms of quiet revolution exist that did not result in mass slaughter...)
As rational humans, we all know this supremacy and Authority exists is on paper alone, but in the subconscious of the National mindset, the idea of supremacy and class still pervades. Particularly since we still have hereditary peers in the upper chamber and the really badly skewed system of the very very small number of old-Etonians STILL making up the apparent majority proportion of successive and contemporary Tory Cabinet members.
So, as a counterpoint to your implication that the majority end up languishing in "low paid jobs...half a brain..." do so as a consequence of a lack of ambition and of their apathy, there are now TWO opposing facts:
- Not everyone ends up in half-brain jobs because of apathy;
- If everyone shed themselves of their apathy, the toilets would still need to be cleaned;
