Okay, kind of a tough question:

[John Gauger]

Why don't people care about important stuff?

My brother posted a thing on a forum yesterday about the clusterfuck in Iraq and how the Pentagon has a "Chaos Index" charting how close they are to total obliteration of society. They're about 75% of the way there. One of his friends posted the message: "Chill!!!" This guy thought my brother was actually overconcerned. My brother wasn't the one who used three fucking exclamation points. He didn't use a single one. He didn't use any obscenities or all caps, either. I think he was being remarkably low key about the matter.

Last week I was in the dining hall at my college, thinking about the war in Iraq. A friend of mine said as she passed, "It's not that bad." She had no idea what I was thinking about; she just saw the look on my face. I wanted to tell her that it was worse than she could possibly imagine, but she would have just rolled her eyes. Nobody cares to listen to me when I tell them how bad things are. They just don't care about important stuff. Why is that?

[PurpleChez]

1. Coz if they don't acknowledge that there's a problem then they don't have to fix it.

[Lautremont]

2. Self-defence mechanism.

You were about right thinking that it was worse than this person could possibly imagine. This is probably the literal truth. Too much for many to grasp, too awful to wish to grasp.

[Indiana_Dem]

3. Long story but--

they are stuck in the world of consumerism, or consumption. Take it all away and they would pay attention then, don't you think!? There's more to it than what I've mentioned but this has a great deal to do with why people don't seem to care, I believe.

[hwmnbn]

5. I think you nailed it, Indiana_Dem.......

Most non-political types are interested mainly in entertaining themselves with distractions from the real world. Iraq is the life and death reality they desperately need to avoid. By not acknowledging it, the can claim ignorance, and so avoid responsibility. It's a very self-serving ploy.

They would counter that they aren't ignorant about world events. They know who got voted off of "Dancing with the Stars" or "Survivor." They know which celebrity's marriage is on the rocks. Those are the important issues of the day to these blissfully ignorant souls.

They do it on purpose.

[Orangepeel]

7. take away their stuff and they'd care about Iraq? Nah.

they'd care about the stuff they didn't have. It isn't consumerism that is causing indifference. Consumerism is simply the channel to direct their indifference.

[Burried News]

4. They want to stay indulged children rather than responsible

adults ... and our Culture of Narcissism does everything it can to keep them that way.

[HuffleClaw]

6. why should they?

the media treats the 'war' in iraq as back page news. only those who deliberately follow events know whats really going on.