This sort of cynic pessimism is getting out of hand...
By most any measure, today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive: life expectancy, crime, food availability, mobility.
This is also true of education and "being informed", although those are harder to measure. But literacy rates, high school and advanced degree proliferation, books being published, and of course internet access should be decent proxies.
That's not even including the vast improvements people who aren't white, able-bodied men have seen. Just ask around among women over 70 and you will find plenty who wanted to go to medical school and were stymied for whatever reason. My mother was told that, yes, she can matriculate. "But as long as I am professor, no woman will pass [some required class]"
None of what you wrote addressed the point of the comment you were responding to, which is that it's hard get people to be informed about the news if they just don't care. I'm not arguing that what you said is inherently wrong, it just doesn't have anything to do with the question at hand.
The OP wrote that, "You can send the best art / math / business professor to a school, but if the students are not interested in that field and have no need for a good grade, there will be very little learning done." Let's take that and combine it with the women going to medical school that you referenced.
OP is suggesting that the women going to medical school might put all of their effort into the classes that directly pertain to their field. But if they need an elective class (let's say, some kind of art class, for instance), then they might go into that and put forth the lowest effort possible to achieve a passing grade if it doesn't interest them. OP's suggesting, and rightly so I believe, that the general populous does the same thing with politics. Those that care about it invest more time in reading about it, while those that don't care about it won't invest more time in reading about it and will typically choose the lowest-effort, easiest-to-digest sources of news.
Going back to OP's original question, how to we counteract those tendencies?
That data shows only modest changes since 1940, and no discernible decline in the last decade or so. If anything, turnout was lower in the 80s and 90s, slightly higher in the 60s.
I feel like I understand what you're getting at with that data as it pertains to "interest in politics" at a general level, but I'm not sure how you intend to use that data in this specific conversation. OP and I are wondering how we get the general populous to invest quality time in educating themselves about the news/politics, subjects many people don't care about. How does the data you provided correlate with that conversation?
I am sure you would not consider the electorate that chose the Nazis (giving them by far the largest share, 44%) to be more informed / educated than the modern US electorate.
> today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive
> OP's position is basically "everything was better in the past" [that's from your other comment below]
I think the past was horrible, and I'm glad I live in this century. Why did you conclude that I like the past? Was some of my wording ambiguous?
I said:
> this idea has never worked in the past, and there's no evidence that it can work in the near future.
In other words, I believe the majority of the public was not, is not, and will not be (in the foreseeable future) interested in being informed and educated about politics.
Also, I personally never thought of myself as a cynic - I find the world to be quite enjoyable, and getting better (just not in this particular area).
By most any measure, today's western democracies are the best place, and time in history, to be alive: life expectancy, crime, food availability, mobility.
This is also true of education and "being informed", although those are harder to measure. But literacy rates, high school and advanced degree proliferation, books being published, and of course internet access should be decent proxies.
That's not even including the vast improvements people who aren't white, able-bodied men have seen. Just ask around among women over 70 and you will find plenty who wanted to go to medical school and were stymied for whatever reason. My mother was told that, yes, she can matriculate. "But as long as I am professor, no woman will pass [some required class]"