The Disturbing Shift Towards Indifference

Almost half of Americans look at this quote from British actress Audrey Hepburn with disdain.  A left-over hippy?  Someone grossly out of touch with the grim realities of living in a competitive world?

This wasn’t the case until fairly recently.  The last few years have brought on a titanic shift in the direction of mean-spiritedness, ignorance, and racism.

Had, for instance, the policy of forced separation of children from their asylum-seeking parents at the southern border become widespread as few as five years ago, Americans wouldn’t have put up with it.  Now, after the Trump administration and the skyrocketing growth of right-wing social media, we’re a society characterized by a vast indifference to the suffering of others.