Apathy

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice," wrote Robert Frost in his famous poem Fire and Ice. In this compact meditation, fire stands for love, and ice for hate. With striking clarity, Frost captures how extreme emotions can bring destruction—both to ourselves and to others. But in 2025, his stark contrast between love and hate invites a deeper reflection: the absence of feeling can be just as corrosive as its excess.

APATHY AS MORAL CORROSION

The true opposite of love isn't hate, but apathy. It is not fierce conflict that tears us apart, but the quiet descent into indifference. Apathy is not a neutral state—it acts through neglect. It is a form of moral amnesia that steadily erodes our shared conscience.

For a generation shaped by the relentless pressure of overlapping global crises, emotional exhaustion has become a constant companion. Where our understanding of the world was once grounded in village or community, we now face a daily flood of stories and images depicting suffering from every corner of the globe. Our capacity for empathy, stretched beyond its limits, begins to falter—until, inevitably, we shut down.

This emotional shutdown is deepened by how we consume the world around us. Repetition plays a paradoxical role: it can sustain attention on urgent crises, but it can also dull our emotional response. Consider Gaza. Day after day, we are confronted with images of devastation and human suffering. At first, they affect us deeply. But the more we see, the less we feel. Familiarity breeds numbness—paving the way for detachment, and eventually, neglect.

DEMOCRACY WITHOUT EMPATHY IS A HOLLOW RITUAL

The consequences of indifference extend far beyond the personal realm. We see them echoed in rising political polarization, where populist movements turn vulnerable groups into scapegoats. Empathy for those groups has already been eroded by a society drained by relentless crises. At the same time, engagement in local elections and civic initiatives is steadily declining. Public discourse is hardening: where we once sought conversation, we now retreat into curated echo chambers. Democratic values like solidarity, accountability, and shared responsibility cannot survive without empathy. When that moral instinct fades, democracy becomes a hollow ritual.

I recognize this drift toward apathy in myself. Even the once-jarring images of the Holocaust I grew up with have, over time, lost much of their emotional force. To me, they began to feel like distant symbols of the past rather than lived realities. That changed when I came across the music of a young Jewish jazz duo from my hometown, both of whom perished in the camps. Their melodies were light, full of life and ease—recorded before they knew the horror that awaited them. Knowing their fate, combined with the music itself, struck me deeply and unexpectedly. It pierced the numbness that had quietly taken hold.

That experience made me realize how even today’s most urgent crises can fade into abstraction—unless we find new, human ways to connect.

PAUSING FOR GAZA

This realization reminded me that we have a choice in how we engage with the world. We need not be consumed by the flood of information around us; instead, we can create space for what genuinely moves us. Now, I set aside time once a month to pause and reflect on Gaza—not through news footage, but through Palestinian art and music. Not because I expect it to change the world, but because it changes me.

Especially now, in a time when fatigue and overstimulation threaten to paralyze us, it's vital to find ways to remain engaged without sinking into helplessness. Apathy may masquerade as level-headedness or self-preservation—but in truth, it is an insidious moral poison. It dulls empathy, weakens solidarity, and permits moral decay to spread unchecked.

Not everyone must take to the streets. Yet now, perhaps more than ever, it matters to find something—however small—that still touches you. In a world worn down by indifference, to feel deeply is a quiet but powerful act of resistance.

*This article is being reproduced with permission. The original was published in the Dutch newspaper Trouw.