Apathy and the Living Dead
It’s nothing to die; it’s frightful not to live. - Victor Hugo
The word “Apathy” has its origin in Greek and literally means "without feelings." Isn’t that a description of the dead? That was what Victor Hugo was referring to when he wrote, "It’s nothing to die; it’s frightful not to live." In other words, we should not be afraid of dying, but not living. The apathetic are alive, but without feelings, so they are not living. They are the living dead.
Here’s what the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-1980) had to say about the subject, "... In the 19th century the problem was that God is dead; in the 20th century the problem is that man is dead ..." He calls apathy a problem for a good reason. It is a double-edged sword that wounds both the apathetic and the society in which they live. For example, although nuclear weapons cannot destroy democracy, voter apathy can! Such is the horrific negative power of apathy. As the world’s leading democratic country, The U.S., prepares to go to the polls, voter turnout is expected to be about 36%. Wouldn’t you call that a wakeup call?
What is the cause of apathy? It is often frustration and a sense of powerlessness that causes people to withdraw from life. However, the ultimate cause is their attitude, the way they react to the changing world. Let’s take a look at a specific example.
Jan has recently learned that her company has been bought by another company. Within a month, she and her coworkers will learn who among them will be hired by the new company and who will lose their jobs. Overnight their sense of security has been shattered. They are experiencing apprehension and frustration. They feel that they have lost control over their lives. They complain and disengage from activity. "If the company doesn’t care about me, why should I care about it? What’s the point of working when I’m probably going to lose my job anyway?"
This is an example of worker apathy. The staff has been reduced to a bunch of zombies. No one is doing their job. They are just putting in their time until that fateful day when they learn whether they have a job in the new company. There is one exception, however. And that is Jan. She is different. She has a different attitude and is living proof that apathy is not caused by events, but by our reaction to events.
What goes through the minds of those who know they will perish is a phenomenon to the minds of those who have not experienced the dance with death. For some, the moment that they know they will die is mere seconds before their own tragic ending, and others know long before it will happen. It is in these stretches of time that will test our intellect of our mind, body, and world when the time comes to know if we have truly lived. One definition of “living” is stated, “full of life of vigor”, which John Keats exhibited to the extreme. (Merriam-Webster) John Keats, world-renowned poet, knew his end was coming and he aspired to transcribe his thoughts into words on a page; it is with these words in which we, those who lack the experience of knowing
The implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act applied a market approach to school reform as a way of improving the school system. This new law promised an era of high standards, testing, and accountability in
The debate on nature versus nurture has existed for thousands of years. Ancient philosophers Plato and Aristotle formed the argument through conflicting beliefs on the basics of human knowledge. Plato felt wisdom was innate, that all people were born with knowledge, and their experiences only helped to remind them of what they once knew. Aristotle challenged this through his belief of obtaining information through experiences. He viewe...
For as long as any American can remember, education has been a top priority of the majority of the population. The more schooling a child receives, the brighter their future becomes. Everyone wants their child to be successful in and out of the classroom, and the government has been working to make sure of this in schools nationwide. Over the years, a series of programs have been implemented to better the education of elementary and secondary students, including the No Child Left Behind Act, establishing guidelines and requirements that public schools are expected to follow and accomplish in order to provide a quality education to all of their students. But are these plans, policies, and promises working? Are the goals and objections being reached by each school as expected? Although some may argue that the No Child Left Behind Act has some positive aspects, overall, it is not working because some teachers have studied the outline of standardized tests, reworking their curriculums to teach students what they need to know in order to reach the required standards and students’ learning abilities, socioeconomic status’, and native languages are generalized into a single curriculum.
This book is important to business students because it shows that even the most seasoned executive runs into unexpected challenges and can find themselves in uncharted territory. Jim Barton’s experiences and lessons can be lessons for anyone. Any employee, whether they are support staff or a top executive, should always maintain an open mind and be ready to learn from a situation or the people around them at any time.
To examine this decline in voter turnout we must consider several factors. One of those factors is that there is no political efficacy. Political efficacy means that people are less likely to vote if they don't believe that their vote will be counted, or if they don't trust the government. Little faith in the electoral process leads to a conviction that a person's vote doesn't really matter. Citizens show lack of interest in politics because they have limited information about the government. The percentage of Americans who say they have “trust and confidence” in the presidency and Congress has decreased in the past decades. Americans’ Trust in government was 70% in 1960s, and then decreased to 40% in 1980s. A recent survey from Pew Research Center showed that “Only 2...
At a time of wide public concern about the state of education, the legislation sets in place requirements that reach into virtually every public school in America. The law emphasizes accountability, teacher quality, parent choice, improved teaching methods, and flexibility. (Correa) Strict requirements and deadlines have been set for states to expand the scope and frequency of student testing, revamp their accountability system and guarantee that every classroom is staffed by a ?highly qualified? teacher in his or her own subject area. (I ed) The plan also mandates annual student testing in reading and math by 2005, and requires all school districts to allow students in consistently low-performing schools to transfer to higher performing schools, at the districts expense. (Hull) From year to year, states are required to improve the quality of their schools. No Child Left Behind has expanded the federal ...
Death is universal, but various cultures have their own unique traditions. The Jewish culture has explicit rules which are steeped in tradition, and have significant meaning. The rituals are based on events from the Hebrew Bible.
Everyone is going to die; it is a fact of life. Every living thing on this planet will cease to exist at one point or another. John Donne, Walt Whitman, and Mary Oliver all acknowledge this fact in their poetry, but they go beyond the reality of the situation. In “Death Be Not Proud”, John Donne tells Death that it is a slave and eventually it will not be needed. Walt Whitman says that death does not exist and the soul is immortal in “Song of Myself”. Lastly, in “When Death Comes” Oliver describes a vision of life to avoid fearing death. Although everyone dies, death is not powerful or something to be feared because the soul lives forever. Death is not authoritative or compelling; it is a slave to mankind. Drugs and medicine make humans sleep
Steen, R. Grant. DNA and Destiny: Nurture and Nature in Human Behavior. New York: Plenum Press, 1996.
First, a cause of apathy is people wanting to fit in around others, so they will do anything they expect will cause them to look favorable to others. People worry about what others think about them and do not want to be laughed at. Therefore, some people have a selfish desire to fit in which dominates over their sense of morality and civic
Heidegger, in his famous work Being and Time, argues that death is not an event but an existential possibility (1962, pp.294). In this sense, death is a way to be and Dasein’s (which Heidegger refers to as human existence) Being is a Being-towards-Death. Death is part of our life and the prospect of death grants unity and wholeness to Dasein (Reynolds, 2014, pp.40). According to Heidegger, there are two inauthentic apprehension of death: fear and indifference. “Inauthentic” here means “not fully recognizing what it means to exist”. Heidegger suggests that death is non-relational. Nobody else can die for me. Neither can I die for others. One must face his/her own death alone. Therefore, to be indifferent towards death and to fear death are both
What is death? What makes death such an avoided subject? According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, death is defined as: the permanent cessation of vital functions; the end of life. So maybe we fear death and death’s process because the thought of life ending is unbearable or because we know little about the dying process and naturally, as humans, we fear the unknown. These all may be true and in most cases probably are. But if one was to take a look at death and the process and consider the true meaning of that very moment in one’s life, maybe we would view it differently and maybe, just maybe, see life itself in a whole new way?! Marie de Hennezel, in her book Intimate Death defines death as . . . “our life’s culmination, it’s crowning moment and what gives it both sense and worth” (xi). She sheds light on the positive side of death, the part no one thinks about or acknowledges. And she shows us that death can in fact make us see how amazing life can be. In his book, The Body Silent, Robert Murphy shares with us the changes in life and actions of society when faced with the process of death.
Death is always an interesting topic for discussion. Individuals will respond differently to it emotionally and physically. Some will see it as a nuisance and attempt to remain as busy as they can to not think of it but once death catches up to us we hope and pray that there is an afterlife where we can continue living. Others will do anything in their power to fight against it and make sure that they live their life to the fullest. These individuals are determined to leave some trace of them behind before it is too late. There are a few individuals who find the beauty in death. As if death is all around us and we simply need to take the time to look at it. In any case death is something we will encounter and in Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, Thomas’s, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night”, and Seuss’s “Still-Life with Turkey” we are shown these different viewpoints in very different and unique ways.
Pope, M. (2000, Mar). A brief history of career counseling in the United States. The Career