The Perils of Indifference

The title “The Perils of Indifference” to me means the challenges or dangers of not caring about serious issues.

The events in “The Lottery” remind me of how people have their routines or a specific way of living. For these people in the story, this was the routine that they had. This story is all about ‘tradition.’ Even the lottery box they used needed to be replaced, but “no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box.” These people had this tradition every year to have this lottery. They were used to it. We even have lotteries in our society. Fortunately they are quite opposite to the lottery in this story. But a tradition or routine that I have may be completely bizarre or opposite as to what you or your neighbors are used too. The only reason this story is shocking is that someone dies in the end, which I think is not a good tradition to have, but that is what the narrator decided to write about. An example that reminds me of this story on a more serious side is The Holocaust. This is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, led by Adolf Hitler. The people that were apart of this probably had no idea of what they were really doing. They were most likely normal people who went home to their families everynight to eat dinner. This became their way of living, just like the people in “The Lottery.” They stick to the way they have been raised.

Elie Wiesel’s speech relates to “The Lottery” because throughout his story he is talking about all the major catastrophies that have happened like “two World Wars, countless civil wars...bloodbaths in Cambodia and Nigeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda...” and so on. These are all related to “The Lottery” on a much larger scale. In “The Lottery,” a random person is stoned to deaths,and in all the events in Wiesel’s speech, random people are kiled in mass numbers.

Ignorance Is Bliss

Once you have become aware of a certain problem in society, are you morally responsible for now dealing with that issue?

No. I do not think it is an individual's responsibility for some things. How can someone do anything about an issue like the conditions of a slaughter house? So they stop eating hamburgers, what is that going to accomplish? A person that stops condoning the problem is not going to make a difference from all the people that don't care or don't know. But then the question arises is it now your responsibility to tell everyone? I think that if you have the power to make a difference or have a chance to allow people to make a decision between a right and a wrong then you should do it. I am somewhat contradicting myself, but when I say no, it is not an individual's responsibility to dealing with an issue, I mean that they are not responsible for things like changing the environments of a slaughter house. It is the job of the manager, or someone that has the power to change it, and I think that if you are that person, you are morally responsible for dealing with that issue. Some people think that it is the worst job on earth, but the workers do not have the power to change it, and they only work there because it is probably the only place that they can work. They may not have a choice.