Anyone else feel like the reason why humanity doesn’t bother to fix important issues for a long time is because the people simply don’t care enough to group up and fix them. I mean when I try to educate folks on complex problems they often seem like they don’t want to discuss it and quickly defend the status quo saying “that’s just how things are”
But we can’t keep ignoring these issues because then it could delay necessary progress for thousands of years.
Apathy is a coping mechanism
I basically came to say this, but also that the cause is systemic.
When modern society, so thoroughly ravaged by late stage capitalism, requires you to spend the majority of your day working or doing chores and your leisure time is resting just enough so you can do it so again, there’s no energy left to fight.
I can’t say that those in charge are smart enough to do this on purpose, but it’s definitely effective.
And a surviving mechanism ; don’t do anything (use up energy) if you don’t need it like now.
Our brains are made for fruit picking and running in the jungle.
In a single day, I can’t worry at the same time about LGTBQ rights, palestinians, Ukranians, animal abuse, 100000 diseases that need research, racism, facism, basic needs for the third world, police brutality, the state of democracy, a migration crisis, climate change, polution, and many many many more things.
It is just too much to handle. So when faced with the horrors of the world for the bazzilionth time a day, I just can’t bring myself to care anymore. If I did, I would be in constant stress about everything that is going wrong with the world. Instead, I throw away the booklets I get from the charities I donate monthly to, I tell the collector at the door I can’t spare any money for children in Palestine, and I scroll past the post about how many children were raped in Ukraine today. Hence, I will come across as apathatic.
But that apathy is a survival mechanic, since without it, I would go insane.
I’m. Tired. I wish I wasn’t.
It certainly has become one for me at any rate…
I used to care a lot about everything, and now I’m just so so tired of trying. Apathy feels like a poplar grove; just keeps growing, spreading, and outcompeting everything else until it takes over and ruins everything, because it takes an absolute ton of energy control spread.