In modern society, a lot of cynical, grumpy old men like me blame a lot of different things on "the participation trophy crowd", but hear me out:
The main idea behind participation trophies to to instill in children a sense that participating in a process is its own reward. The young person gets a trophy at the end of a sport season for attending practices and games often enough to avoid getting thrown off the team. The lesson being taught is this: Just showing up for an event is enough effort to deserve to receive a shiny object as a reward.
I see this idea manifest itself often in my teaching career. Quite often, students are flabbergasted that they do not receive a passing, or even good grade in my courses because they have attended regularly and turned in all the assignments. It matters little to them that the assignments they turned in were poorly done and their exams showed no proficiency in science. "I came to class every day and did my homework. That should be good enough for a 'C'".
Apply this same logic to voting. We see advertisements on every form of media encouraging people to "get out the vote". Those who have received participation trophies all their lives see it as an obligation to do the bare minimum in participating in our Republic. To them, the bare minimum is to take whatever "knowledge" they have accidentally gleaned from commercials that come on during their favorite reality programs and use that to decide which candidate to vote for. Just like in their little league sports careers, there is no sense of motivation for excellence. "If I go and vote, I have done my duty and I will get a sticker". They feel no need study history as a lens through which to evaluate the possible intended and unintended consequences of the policies advocated by whomever the TV has told them to vote for. They don't see a reason to research the actual careers and voting records of the candidates to see if they match the rhetoric of their campaigns, or to see if their character is such that we would even have them over to dinner, let alone have them govern our once great republic.
Here is the reality. The participant in ANY endeavor who does not give significant thought, time and effort to that endeavor provides a NEGATIVE value to the community associated with that endeavor. Having someone on a sports team who does not put full effort into training, practices and games brings the quality of the sport down. The league would be better served by cutting under preforming players and reducing the number of teams in the league if need be. That way, the remaining players could enjoy a higher quality version of their sport, and the cut players would be motivated to work harder and get ready to be a better player next year if they decide to pursue the sport.
The same is true in the classroom. Students who "show up" for college and do little else draw precious and scarce educational resources away from those who really want to better understand the universe, or the arts, or history or whatever focus a student may enjoy. If colleges were much quicker to remove under performing students, the remaining students could get a much more clearly and sharply presented education, and the removed students would know to step up their effort before attempting another university or college.
By the same token, people who vote without seriously looking at the issues facing our country and the history of those issues allow for people of low character and dubious policies to rise to power. Please Americans, I want you to vote, but only if you are spending multiple hours reading multiple traditional and non-traditional sources about the main issues of these elections and the histories and characters of those running for office. Feel free to include non-traditional candidates ("third" parties) when you see finally see clearly what dolts have risen to the tops of the major parties. Voters not willing to do this kind of work in their decision making do not deserve a sticker for voting. In fact, they deserve a dunce cap, and even worse, they deserve the candidates they are getting.
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