The Danger of Lack of Interest

Even though a community, family, or any other kind of social unit may seem completely normal, that doesn't necessarily mean it is. This kind of situation is apparent in the short story "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. What appears to be a normal functioning, run of the mill community turns out to be a group of people willing to stone a person to death just because they drew a piece of paper with a black dot on it. Similarly in "The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill, what appear to be loving happy communities of people in Africa turn out to be abusive and indifferent of their fellow man when slave coffle's are led through their towns. This indifference is also talked about in a speech made by Elie Wiesel called The Perils of Indifference. He talks about how regular countries, so similar to the regular community in "The Lottery"; ignore such life altering things such as the Holocaust, or the stoning of a person. Wiesel also talks about how shocking it is to discover that people were indifferent about such things. How could one human being just completely disregard the life of another? It does happen, and it occurs in communities, families, and other social units more often than we would like to admit.