“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” ("Inferno" from "The Divine Comedy" by D. Alighieri) - Is washing one's hands of problems the best solution?
Agnieszka Grochowska - 13.11.2018 @ 16:22
Here can you read our opinion about the neutrality - is it a real solution?
Hell for the indifferent ones?
by Dorina Farkas und Kira Sztaskó, DNG Budapest/Hungary
,,The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.” – wrote Dante in his work Divine Comedy. His opinion was that neutrality is negative and it can mean that somebody in an argument doesn’t stand on either side or isn’t interested in the events of the world.
When somebody has some information, he/she can decide if he cares about it, speaks about it, writes about it, so in general thinks about it, or lets it pass by. For example, some people think about a problem and that they don’t have to help, because others have the solution and do something about it instead of them. Such an approach like passivity can cause ignorance and lack of their own opinion. If people don't have their point of view, the whole society becomes manipulable and some people can take advantage of this deceitfully to profit from it.
Finally, we can say that you have to pay attention to your environment and the people that live there. You mustn’t be passive and forget that your future is in your hand!
drawn by Kira Sztaskó
Kira Sztaskó - 14.11.2018 @ 12:28
Hi, I read your text and I thought it was really great. You made some really good points and the text also lead you to think more about the topic. I also think the last scentence is really good: "You mustn't be passive and forget thet your future is in your hand!". It really shows what you wanted to get out of the text, and it really shows you that you are the only person who can change your future. Ad I also take it that people shouldn't be afraid of having an opinion and that you should express those opinions.
Evelina Svensson - 29.11.2018 @ 11:31
Thank you for the comment. We're really happy that the text was thought-provoking! :)
Dorina Farkas - 01.12.2018 @ 14:56
After reading your text I wasn`t entirely sure if I could agree with the points you made. I think there is a difference between "neutrality" and "indifference". Neutrality doesn`t necessarily mean that one does absolutely not care about the events occurring around them, it could rather imply that the concerned person has a more objective view of a situation and could therefore be more likely to pose a different way of solving any problems connected with this situation.
Still, I have to agree that indifference/neutrality can pose another kind of problem: The issue of us being indifferent towards anything and everything, meaning we lose our ability to feel empathy. We as humans survived over millions and millions of years, not because we were the strongest, the fastest or even the most intelligent. We survived because we were able to combine the abilities of many individuals, to further develop the ideas of one to be of use to all, and, in my opinion, we were able to do this because we felt emotionally connected through empathy. And if we lose this stunning aptitude of empathy, we can be pretty sure that our society will start to deteriorate and fall apart.
Mirjam Kronthaler - 09.12.2018 @ 14:04
Hello Kira! I enjoyed reading your article because I think it's a very discussible topic. I have to say that I agree with most of the points you brought up, e.g. that you should be interested in "what happens with your life" because it's in your hand. Example: It can turn out to be a problem when people don't go voting anymore because maybe they're pretty content with the politicians right now. This works as long as there are enough other people going voting, but if there aren't enough perhaps a specific party could get a lot of power (there are no people to vote for other parties). So now this is the main party in the parliament, it makes severe changes and now maybe most of the people don't like these decisions but at that moment it's too late.
But on the other hand I think that Neutrality doesn't mean that you don't care, it rather means that you have a more diplomatic way of seeing things than other people who have a very own opinion and do not fear to tell others about it.
Valentin Innerbichler - 30.01.2019 @ 14:33