Moral Blindness

Evil is not confined to war or to circumstances in which peopleare acting under extreme duress. Today it more frequently revealsitself in the everyday insensitivity to the suffering of others, inthe inability or refusal to understand them and in the casualturning away of one's ethical gaze. Evil and moral blindnesslurk in what we take as normality and in the triviality andbanality of everyday life, and not just in the abnormal andexceptional cases. The distinctive kind of moral blindness that characterizes oursocieties is brilliantly analysed by Zygmunt Bauman and LeonidasDonskis through the concept of adiaphora: the placing of certainacts or categories of human beings outside of the universe of moralobligations and evaluations. Adiaphora implies an attitude ofindifference to what is happening in the world - a moralnumbness. In a life where rhythms are dictated by ratingswars and box-office returns, where people are preoccupied with thelatest gadgets and forms of gossip, in our 'hurriedlife' where attention rarely has time to settle on any issueof importance, we are at serious risk of losing our sensitivity tothe plight of the other. Only celebrities or media stars can expectto be noticed in a society stuffed with sensational, valuelessinformation.This probing inquiry into the fate of our moral sensibilities willbe of great interest to anyone concerned with the most profoundchanges that are silently shaping the lives of everyone in ourcontemporary liquid-modern world.