Apathy

Hendley Simon Satori

Description

Apathy is neither an enemy nor an illusion. It's just a fact of life. Not to be confused with laziness (a reluctance to exert oneself), apathy is indifference, a lack of passion for a subject and the many advantages of being apathetic are explored in this book.Embrace your apathetic nature! Enjoy being a dilly-dallier, a fence-sitter, a procrastinator! Apathy has been around and documented since the Greeks. In fact, they first gave us the word apathy: the prefix 'a' meaning 'without' and 'pathy' meaning 'passion' or 'intense feeling'.Flip through this book and, apart from a great history of the subject, you'll read about great hobbies for the apathetic (sleeping, drinking, watching TV, shrugging, sitting looking at walls), stupid causes, ideal occupations (monarch, student, priest, customer service operator, politician) and much much more!

Sujets

• Popular psychology
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: Crombie Jardine Publishing Limited
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781291466362
• Langue: English

Extrait

Chapter 1 AN INTRODUCTION TO APATHY

 
I must confess that this book has been sitting uncomfortably in my head for some time now (I’m sure there are other apathetics out there who have also written a similar mental manifesto). I’m only writing it now to make it go away; to wash all the stupid ideas out of my cluttered head and collect them on paper. I’m hoping that this exercise will clear some space for some new stupid ideas.
 
This book is for cowards, slackers, religious zealots, politicians, philosophers, people-in-charge, people-who-want-to-be-in-charge and people-who-think-they-know-how-it-all-works... In fact, why discriminate? Let’s say it’s for all the scum of the earth, including you and me.
 
So why should I be bothered to write anything for scum like you or me? Why should I care? Why should I have any feelings for or against? Yes, lazily, I put up my hand and hand-on-heart (the hand that’s not in the air) admit that I am apathetic.
 
You’re probably apathetic, too – I don’t know (and, frankly, I don’t give a damn!). Anyone who is actively following a cause with the single-mindedness of the proverbial lemming – whether they believe it’s for humanity’s benefit, the honour of their country or their own wellbeing – will have neither the time nor effort to waste on this book. Only the fence-sitters, the dilly-dalliers, and the procrastinators are interested in other people’s philosophies and have the time to investigate dispassionately every angle of the world before committing themselves to doing... bugger all!
 
Come to me, my apathetic children... I love you all. You don’t start fights. You don’t escalate wars. You don’t invent weapons. You don’t seek power above all else. You are fair and honourable and everybody hates you! This is the true reason I’m writing this waffle. Any belief system so despised must have some relevance and must have a champion. If you don’t believe that you are despised, look into the dark recesses of your mind and tell me the last time you remember someone saying something nice about apathy. Every day, politicians blame our apathy when new horrors arise in society or when the opposition party gets elected. And yet those self-same smiling, baby-kissing, power-mongers are only too happy to climb the political ladder when no one can be bothered to stop them.
 
Politicians have always had a love/hate relationship with apathy, but if you want an extreme example you have to look at extreme politics. The rise of the Third Reich is often touted as a supreme example of how Europe’s apathy allowed a monster to grow within its midst. If those lazy, good-for-nothing Europeans had stood up and told Hitler that they didn’t want another despotic and unhinged Napoleocracy, the world would have been a better place. However, I find that argument a little shallow. It makes far more sense to blame people for what they have done than for what they haven’t done. The people who were causing all the trouble, according to the last history book I read, appeared to be motivated idealists in Jack-boots. The Third Reich’s brand of Fascism was not in favour of questioning the worthiness of a campaign or ‘seeing the other person’s point of view’. It did not sweep along an apathetic populace. The Nazis created their own anti-apathetic followers (or ‘pathetic followers’ if you wish to be more lexicographic) with a deft use of symbolism and rhetoric.

I believe that it’s possible to manipulate history to show the wondrous things that apathy is responsible for. History has been manipulated for lesser reasons. For instance, while we’re considering the rise of Fascism, why didn’t England turn Fascist? After all, Oswald Mosley looked as good in black as anyone. He was, by most accounts, an exciting orator. England, being a monarchy, is already used to a single, un-elected nominal ruler. The English like uniforms and are no less racist than any other group of people in Europe. So why didn’t Mosley take England into a new era of centralised and idealistic power? My answer is simple (and predictable given the title of this treatise): apathy. The English are not known for being a particularly passionate race and their indifference to extreme politics scuppered Mosley’s plans. The whole of the bowler-hatted, cake-with-the-vicar, inter-war middle-class was of a similar mind and instead of rallying to the cause of strong government, continued getting slightly passionate about the sort of things that they thought were more important – like the price of tea or the weather.
 
I also believe that the problem with apathy is that someone somewhere confused it with laziness and the rest of us couldn’t be bothered to correct this notion. There is a large overlap in these two groups, but I think the dictionary definition may help here:
apathy n. lack of interest or concern.
laziness n. reluctance to work or be active.

Thus laziness is a natural outlet for apathy, but laziness can exist without such a philosophical background. It’s akin to the confusion that Europe has with Fascists and skinheads. They are two separate groups, but it is true that the likely outlet of philosophical Fascism is to put on a pair of old army boots, shave off your hair and be anti-social and/or dangerous to those that don’t fit in with a particular world-view. However, if you’re accosted by shaven-headed thugs in Aldershot or Sandhurst, the ‘brave young men who are defending our country’ like to be called ‘soldiers’ and not ‘Fascists’.