Why don't YA protagonists fight for social issues that don't personally affect them?

I'm sure teens under 18 care about a lot of things, but when I was that age, I mostly thought about myself and how much the outside world did not understand me.

I think it's totally natural for teens to think they are, or their friends, are at the center of the universe. If it pushes them to defend a cause, that's even better because then they have the passion behind it.

Teens are driven by survival instincts...as a rule.

what? said:

If you look closely at YA fiction, you may be surprised to note:

All protagonists have been forced to act by an outside force!

There is always some disruption in the protagonist's private life, which causes them to take up arms. None of the YA protagonists note that something outside their own small lives is amiss and freely and without any obstacles to their own private goals decide to make it their cause and fight for some greater good. No YA heroine fights against human trafficing, child sexual abuse, poverty in third world countries (or local slums), political corruption, or a better educational system. They only ever fight for their love, their loved ones, or their "freedom" (whatever that is).

Why is that? Why are social and political issues only ever the background to a tale of finding private happiness (or revenge) in YA fiction? Is that because teens under 18 don't yet care about those issues? Are they too difficult to tackle in fiction? Not entertaining to read about?

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As others have said, there are books out there where the MC deals with difficult issues, but we must consider human nature, as well. The average child, the teenager included, is basically selfish. I'm not using this term lightly nor in a superficial manner: kids are programed for survival. If it doesn't concern their own well-being, safety or security, they are not interested.
That's not to say that some kids don't have a wide streak of altruism, some do (and I've met a few over the years) and they involve themselves in issues that are bigger than themselves. However, this is often as a result of adult and peer influences.
Leave the average teen to their own devices, and they will do only what is necessary to keep their own world humming along nicely.
Kids are not lazy, selfish or uncaring, it's just that they're behaving in a manner that falls within the parameters of normal childhood behavior. So, it rings true when an author has their MC driven to act by way of some direct influence on them.
Then, hopefully, by reading about the 'heroic' deeds of characters in books, average kids can learn to look outside of themselves with a sense of what can be done to solve big issues. As someone else mentioned, many of these issues are beyond what a normal child can deal with, and books with MC's who've figure these things out help to empower them so that they might then affect the things that are wrong in the world.

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/partners/project-kool/

Note this project was started because an 11 year old wanted to help the world. His parents made it possible. What often happens is the kids want to do the good thing, but the parents don't go the extra mile with them. The kids don't have the power alone.

You can look for other examples of charitable organizations started by kids and teens. There are quite a few. See where the idea came from. See what they're doing.

Debbie V said:

http://www.stopglobalwarming.org/partners/project-kool/

Note this project was started because an 11 year old wanted to help the world. His parents made it possible.

You can look for other examples of charitable organizations started by kids and teens. There are quite a few. See where the idea came from. See what they're doing.

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There are lots of kids out there doing wonderful things to make their communities, and the world, a better place, but you hit a key point : "His parents made it possible". Lots of parents make their children's dreams a priority: Kids who play music, or dance or parents who move the whole family so their child cab participate in a play/movie/series. In this case, the parents helped their son with a charity.
That's not the issue. The question was why, in a YA fiction, is the MC only driven to action when an issue affects them personally. The secondary discussion has become whether the YA novel is the right platform for social conscience raising or should the story remain paramount. I think the consensus is that the story must be good, but if it's a thinly veiled vehicle for teaching, then it will be preachy and pretentious leaving the YA audience feeling cheated. Kids who are involved in charitable organizations and who are doing good deeds are the minority. Most kids are just struggling to make sense of the world and their place in it. Those kids usually just want to read a good story.

I mean, when I was fifteen most of my activism was around issues that did not directly affect me -- mostly anti-war, since there was plenty of that popping up after 9/11. But if I were writing a story about my life as a teen activist, the conflicts didn't have much to do with the, uh, conflict. Not that I wasn't sincere about my activism, but it was all stuff that was at a remove from me (and my parents are hippies), so the personal drama was about things like getting rides to protests, cuties you'd keep running into at the marches and meetings, who's getting involved with which groups and what their stance on nonviolence is...ultimately, not that much about the cause itself, which makes sense, because the cause was a thing happening elsewhere to other people. Who we cared about in the abstract, but you know, that doesn't make for a very dynamic plot.

By the time I was sixteen, I was out in high school as queer, and more of my activism became about queer issues. I was still going to anti-war demonstrations and campaigning for local NDP candidates, but if I were going to pick something to write a story about from my high school experience, I'd go with the queer stuff because the fact that it was my identity, not just my opinion, meant that I could be confronted with it at any time, and it was a lot harder to walk away and brush it off as "okay, that person sees this issue differently than me, but we can just quietly think each other is stupid and talk about other things in future," because the "issue" was me. Or I would have a great conversation with somebody where they would go on and on about how supportive they were of gay rights, and I'd be like, "yay, somebody gets it!" and then I'd bring up trans issues and they'd be like "o nope not down with that," and it was a massive disappointment, and I didn't know how much I could push back against that without losing their support.

tl;dr: personal stories are usually better stories, so I'm totally okay with activists in YA being involved in super personal causes.

SISTER MISCHIEF by Laura Goode is an excellent example of multi-issue activism in a book, with a group of characters who are affected personally by different things to different degrees.

Preachiness in fiction is obnoxious. If the cause you're trumpeting doesn't directly affect the plot, it's going to come across as preachy. I say this having been a teen who was very into environmental stuff, and used to yell at people for littering or throwing recyclable materials into the regular trash. It didn't win me many friends.

That said: Bad Girls Don't Die has a protagonist who was a lot like me in that respect, stuffing fliers about pollution under the windshield wipers of gas-guzzling cars in the parking lot and stuff like that. It worked pretty well in that case because it wasn't the sole defining aspect of her personality--more like a quirk or a hobby. The main plot was about her little sister being possessed by a ghost.

what? said:

I agree with all you said, but then most people are just plain stupid, because it is extremely selfish to save the planet we live on or change the society we live in for the better, because we are all affected by corruption or the destruction of our habitat.

Being socially and politically active is the peak of selfishness. The problem is not that people are selfish, but that our culture promotes ignorance, and the typical YA book is part of that bread-and-games-strategy: entertain the people, and they won't interfere with the rich folk amassing wealth and power.

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First thing that makes me put down a book is if the narrator says everyone around him is stupid. Take that as you will.

what? said:

I agree with all you said, but then most people are just plain stupid, because it is extremely selfish to save the planet we live on or change the society we live in for the better, because we are all affected by corruption or the destruction of our habitat.

Being socially and politically active is the peak of selfishness. The problem is not that people are selfish, but that our culture promotes ignorance, and the typical YA book is part of that bread-and-games-strategy: entertain the people, and they won't interfere with the rich folk amassing wealth and power.

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One minute you're saying it's selfish for characters to focus on their own lives and then the next minute your saying it's selfish to be altruistic and care about the world.

I don't get it. What???

The evolutionary definition of "selfish" (what will logically be in your best interests, not necessarily at the exclusion of anyone else), not the moral definition (putting your desires above the welfare of others).

Samsonet said:

The evolutionary definition of "selfish" (what will logically be in your best interests, not necessarily at the exclusion of anyone else), not the moral definition (putting your desires above the welfare of others).

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Well to me it seems like the protagonist can't win either way.

Actually, if most issues don't directly affect you, you can't claim that being politically active is the height of selfishness. Nor are teens actually selfish. They're self-centered.

There are not obvious, direct effects of climate change or the semi-war in Ukraine on say, your average American teenager. Maybe through five or six removes, there's a cause for a water shortage or something, but even scientists have trouble figuring out what action they can take will have immediate effects on such an issue, if any even would, so it's not illogical that many teens might not see the benefit of trying for long-term and limited improvements.

I think the point is that taking care of the planet is in *everyone's* interest, so it's both selfish and altruistic, and there's nothing wrong with either of these motivations, as long as you do it.

Forsooth said:

Well to me it seems like the protagonist can't win either way.

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Yeah, pretty much.

I read novels for escapism and fun. If I wanted to read about issues, then I can read non-fiction for that. (Which I do, especially regarding feminist issues.)

Joining a cause could be a background trait, but unless it provides conflict or adds to the story, then I do not want it in the forefront. After all of the elections, and seeing people fight each other over such issues (including my family and friends), I tend to avoid social/politics issues in my escapism.

I think it's normal for most teens to be self-centered. I mean, they are still learning who they are and dealing with social/emotional conflicts like bullying (and cyber-bullying, etc). And they also have to learn how to survive in the real world.

I'm self-centered, too, since I never join most causes, even as an adult (and when I was a teen). It might be because I have too much on my plate in real life and it's stressful having to deal with unemployment and anxiety/depression issues. (I'm also pessimistic, since I feel some battles are impossible to fight, so I have to pick and choose my battles carefully.)

Godyth said:

There are lots of kids out there doing wonderful things to make their communities, and the world, a better place, but you hit a key point : "His parents made it possible".
The question was why, in a YA fiction, is the MC only driven to action when an issue affects them personally. The secondary discussion has become whether the YA novel is the right platform for social conscience raising or should the story remain paramount. I think the consensus is that the story must be good, but if it's a thinly veiled vehicle for teaching, then it will be preachy and pretentious leaving the YA audience feeling cheated. Kids who are involved in charitable organizations and who are doing good deeds are the minority.

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I think we aren't giving the kids credit. Maybe the parents get in the way more often than we realize because we have too much on our plates or are trying to be practical and don't believe getting involved will do any good. This is a cynical view.

Some teens are cynical, but many aren't yet.

The OP does not ask for the activism to be the main focus for the character or the novel (although the OP has edited since I last looked). There's no reason it can't be part of a larger story in a realistic way without being preachy. My earlier post was meant to show that a bunch of kids do care about the world. It's a direct answer to one of the OP's questions. Caring kids do exist - see Emmet's posts. Making this part of a good story is up to the author. As with anything in writing, it's how you handle it that counts.

One easy answer is because adult writers are really out-of-touch with us, today. I am Justin. I hope to become a writer once day. I am learning. The shame of it is that YA writers are always 1-3 generations behind those people they are writing for. It's not their fault. That is how it is. I think you need to have experiences to become a writer so you can identify with characters you write about. I am 13. I have only maybe six years of life experiences. Not enough.

The real question is why YA writers don't talk to children before they begin writing. I would love to talk to a writer and have him/her ask me what is important in my life...what I worry about...what issues are at the front of my thoughts. I would tell him/her that these are five issues I think about:
1) GAY RIGHTS 2) Hunger in America 3) The Old Soviet Nuclear Arsenal 4) Big Business that get rich on war. 5) College money.

Hi, Justin! Welcome to AW!

Yeah, I'm 15, and whenever an adult says something like "teenagers today..." I just sigh quietly. When I'm an adult I'll probably end up saying it too, but hey, those adults were teenagers once -- surely they've heard it from their elders as well?

The good writers manage to channel their inner teen in their writing. The bad ones look at their MC's actions through adult eyes. (You'll notice most of the authors on AW are the good kind!)

Edited to clarify: disapproving adult eyes.

As someone who DOES write issue oriented novels, I think you're thinking about this in the wrong way. To raise awareness, you have to exemplify that which you want to raise awareness about.

So, if you want to write about water wars, you should choose a protagonist that is affected by the water wars. If you want to write about poverty, you should write about a character who is poor.

What I mean is, it is really uninteresting to read about some trust fund kid who gets a bit of money guilt and decides to help save the poor unfortunate blighters.

That is not only removed from the conflict, it is also insulting because it broadcasts that poor people are so victimised that they have lost their own agency. It says that poor people are stupid and need some rich brat to come in and save them.

Conflict is always personal, and affects the characters. So, when I wrote about the media frenzy and how it affects people, I didn't write about a journalist in the grips of guilt about the job situation. I wrote about a kid who was plastered across the tabloids as a vicious yob when he wasn't. Because that brings conflict; that also brings resolution; and it finally allows you to show how what you want to raise awareness about affects the character. It becomes personal.

what? said:

If you look closely at YA fiction, you may be surprised to note:

All protagonists have been forced to act by an outside force!

There is always some disruption in the protagonist's private life, which causes them to take up arms. None of the YA protagonists note that something outside their own small lives is amiss and freely and without any obstacles to their own private goals decide to make it their cause and fight for some greater good. No YA heroine fights against human trafficing, child sexual abuse, poverty in third world countries (or local slums), political corruption, or a better educational system. They only ever fight for their love, their loved ones, or their "freedom" (whatever that is).

Why is that? Why are social and political issues only ever the background to a tale of finding private happiness (or revenge) in YA fiction? Is that because teens under 18 don't yet care about those issues? Are they too difficult to tackle in fiction? Not entertaining to read about?

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After receiving the fist answers, I edited this question to better reflect my intention. The first answers still reflect the original post, which misleadingly dealt with the question of proactivity. Don't be confused ;-)

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Aside from everything else about the general motivations of humans, teenagers, the psychology of children, etc., etc., how, exactly, is a teenager meant to fight against, say, human trafficking or poverty in third world nations?

I mean a character might have an interest or like, 'adopt' a kid from one of those things, but what is a 10th grader meant to do about human trafficking? An adult character could be a human rights lawyer, or a journalist or join an organization and go work in the field. A teen can... give out leaflets to her friends? Phonebank for some organization? I'm not saying those aren't good things to do, but they're not the basis for a book.

JustinMetcalf2000 said:

One easy answer is because adult writers are really out-of-touch with us, today. I am Justin. I hope to become a writer once day. I am learning. The shame of it is that YA writers are always 1-3 generations behind those people they are writing for. It's not their fault. That is how it is. I think you need to have experiences to become a writer so you can identify with characters you write about. I am 13. I have only maybe six years of life experiences. Not enough.

The real question is why YA writers don't talk to children before they begin writing. I would love to talk to a writer and have him/her ask me what is important in my life...what I worry about...what issues are at the front of my thoughts. I would tell him/her that these are five issues I think about:
1) GAY RIGHTS 2) Hunger in America 3) The Old Soviet Nuclear Arsenal 4) Big Business that get rich on war. 5) College money.

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What makes you think they don't talk to kids?

This is kind of an example of what people were talking about upthread. Those are your primary social justice-type interests. They're not mine. I'm not a teenager but they weren't mine when I was one either.

I was very interested and active in politics and social justice-type issues as a teen. The issues that were primary for me then are still on the top of my list - it hasn't really changed in the intervening years. It's not similar to your list; it never was, it probably never will be. I have no idea if yours will change over time but it's yours. Doesn't mean it's anyone else's.

Samsonet said:

Hi, Justin! Welcome to AW!

Yeah, I'm 15, and whenever an adult says something like "teenagers today..." I just sigh quietly. When I'm an adult I'll probably end up saying it too, but hey, those adults were teenagers once -- surely they've heard it from their elders as well?

The good writers manage to channel their inner teen in their writing. The bad ones look at their MC's actions through adult eyes. (You'll notice most of the authors on AW are the good kind!)

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Yes, they did, and said it themselves sooner than you'd think. Ok, I said it AS a teen too, but still.

what? said:

(b) In real life, kids from rich countries go to poor countries and work on the issues they want to solve. Or they join the Jihad and die for Isis. The latter might not be your idea of saving the world, but it's what a frighening number of muslim teens do.

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But that never happens in a vacuum. Something compels them to act that way, and that compulsion is personal. It's in them. And if it's in them, it's exploitable.

No well-adjusted British teenager is going to take up arms and go abroad. Not even in the regular forces. There's always a compulsion that makes them take that decision.

Why is this teenager so engaged that he is willing to die for something?

When I was a teenager and raged against Thatcher's bombs I wanted so badly to go to places like Greenham Common and do something. Reagan was littering Europe with Bombs, and this woman was letting him do it, and we were all going to die in a ball of fire! My parents prevented me from going. They could never understand me. They were so old-fashioned, and didn't get anything.

It was only ten years later that I realised that most of my passion was because my friends seemed as passioned, and my activism was, in large part, because of a group-feedback echo chamber. I wanted to look good to my friends, and not let them down.

And that's the way it is for most humans; young or old. Nobody is just going to sit down and dispassionately think "Oh, there's a bit of bother in Syria. How awful. I'll go there and join. By George, yes." Activism is always personal.

Huh? Maxinquaye was talking about how activism is personal. What are you talking about? I'm getting confused.

what? said:

(a) Teens in novels do all kinds of impossible things. In books and movies, the world has been saved by teens so often that I don't understand your question.
(b) In real life, kids from rich countries go to poor countries and work on the issues they want to solve. Or they join the Jihad and die for Isis. The latter might not be your idea of saving the world, but it's what a frighening number of muslim teens do.

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The majority of people in ISIS are ex-Iraqi military, not teenagers. Believe me, if this was a gang of teenagers, they would not have taken over half of Syria and Iraq.

Additionally, even if you join the military, that's often still for a personal reason. Some join because they need a job, want a way to pay for college, etc. I'm nineteen and knew since high school I wanted to become an Army nurse, but a lot of that does go back to personal reasons.

Maxinquaye is right--that compulsion does not happen in a vacuum.