Philosophy break: Do we still have the right to be indifferent?

“Do we have more sensitivity than our fathers?” asked Tocqueville discovering the democratic mores in America that he had gone to scrutinize.

Now, the answer no longer seems to be in doubt.

It is yes, for sure.

How far away indeed this indifference of ancient times seems to us, oscillating between cruelty (the Incas burying their children alive during an earthquake) and mortal contempt for those below (the helots of Sparta, the slaves of 'Athens, etc).

"In the past, everyone was mad," Nietzsche makes the last man say, homo democraticus.

And this one points to the aristocratic man.

What a relief for us, indeed, to have returned from this territory of the inhuman!

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It is that democracy, by equalizing our conditions, has abolished, with the hierarchy and the elites, the distance that our ancestors had endeavored to maintain between men.

Behold, every individual, defined as our equal, has thereby become our neighbour, and each...

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