THE FEELING OF APATHY.

APATHY is the lack of feeling, emotion, interest, and concern with the surrounded environment. It is a state of indiference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, and/or passion. The apathetic may lack a sense of purpose, worth, or meaning in their life. Social apathy is the desensitization of human involvement is concerned.
APATHY comes from the ancient Greek 'apathies', which means 'lack of feeling. In politics, ancient Athenians praised attentive citizens and condemned the apathetic ones.
APATHY as a concept has its roots in the stoic philosophy of the 4th century BC, and later on in Zeno of Cithium in the 3rd to 4th century, and was the object of debates between the Aristotelians, Stoics, and Epicureans, regarding the extent to which 'apathy', which are emotions and feelings, should be present and rule human lives.
In anthropology and related fields, the concept really emerges in the 20th century. Ethnographers, such as the sociologists Helen and Robert Lynd, and the sociologist-anthropologist Lloyd warner, were interested in "rituals and symbolism" in communities that were also characterized by citizen apathy and disinterest in political activity and participation.
In their 1937 study, 'Middle Town in Transition,' the Lynds observed apathetic attitudes and feelings in small American towns. The study depicted, "a world view of a culture that reproduces an apathetic response to political and societal problems." The communities, facing hard circumstances and poverty, their answer to that was a highly individualistic attitude, and the belief that a change must be individual and not institutional. Here, 'apathy' is really understood in terms of individual responsibility, and individualistic attitudes. The Lynds also noticed "a wide disparity between citizen disinterest in local politics and intense interest in national elections," thus evoking the idea that certain external conditions can stimulate apathetic citizens, like symbols at the national level, while local politics suffer from disinterest.
In a similar type of work, Lloyd Warner's 'Democracy in Jonesville' saw that the apathy in the local communities worked as a "functional" element and was part of the "ideology of democracy" and it maintained and "open system of social class"in the United States. 'Apathy' here is conceptualized as a necessary element for the American liberal democracy.
In the first part of the 20th century, 'apathy' was then understood either as a psychological attitude at the level of the individual, in a "blame-the-victim approach," or as a functional element of liberal democracies.
Mentions of 'apathy' and how it is provoked by the state and its institutions become more and more prevalent as we move from the end of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21th century.
APATHY is now more and more framed and studied in terms of preventing participation in decision-making processes and opportunities, and as a tool of state management to assert control and domination over a population. Thus 'apathy' is an attitude cultivated and reproduced by state institutions as an instrument of power, since resources are distributed through political parties that often follow political interests and agendas, rather than community needs, provoking the frustration and indifference of the individuals inside it.
APATHY, today, is mostly studied as a consequence of deliberate state policies, and as a systemic issue that relates to the way the state functions.
APATHY is even more relevant to study today as it has become one of the most important issues of our societies, and a key element preventing modern societies from moving towards more participatory forms of democracy.