Our View: Public Apathy begs question: Who cares?

The weekly meeting of the Universal Apathy Club has been canceled due to lack of interest.

As silly as that statement sounds, it unfortunately holds a great amount of truth in various situations. Our culture has become overrun with an attitude of if something does not apply to me at this moment, well, who cares?

This past week, President Obama said that oil is the “fuel of the past.” Except for those who work in petroleum dependent economies, who cares?

The Louisiana regular legislative session opened Monday. A casual public sampling found that most people did not realize it although education and health care are expected to be hot button topics. Except for political junkies, who cares?

Public schools face budget cuts and already less than acceptable student performance is in danger of getting worse. Other than parents with kids in school (and many of those parents are themselves indifferent), who cares?

Meetings for local government are held on a regular basis, but the few that do irregularly attend walk out once their specific agenda item has been addressed, only to miss other matters that probably impact them as well, but who cares?

Many poor health conditions can be combatted, yet heart disease, diabetes and other ailments of which lifestyle is the main contributor of risk remains mostly ignored. Who cares?

With technology, the world of information has never before brought the world closer to an individual. Yet, isolation promoted by personal electronic gadgets has made the concept of interpersonal relations from knowing a neighbor’s name to personally helping others has become an old fashioned notion. Does anyone really care?

Evidence is compelling that by exercising apathy, isolation invites depression, impacting one’s health further and making him less able to participate in activities and practices to better oneself and society.

A lack of desire to improve one’s condition has adverse educational and economic impact for the larger community.

There are many causes for apathy. The one common threat is a sense of futility, a flawed belief that nothing matters. Apathy, it turns out, is the ultimate expression of selfishness.

We believe there needs to be less selfishness not only from government, but from those that fail to participate in the process. The same applies to education for our children, health for our families and quality of life for our neighbors. The alternative is a continued deterioration of society – the very thing that many selfish folks complain about the most.

So, if we don’t care – who cares?