In an article published in la Repubblica on July 20, Umberto Galimberti brought attention back to a crucial fault line in our collective experience: indifference. Reflecting on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the philosopher argues that the escalation of atrocities dulls our capacity to perceive and imagine reality, thereby relieving us—perhaps conveniently—of responsibility. In this state of perceptual anesthesia, indifference becomes the most lethal weapon in the hands of those who wage war.

The theme of indifference is hardly new, nor lacking in philosophical weight. It is, in many ways, a classic of moral reflection—from Lucretius onward. In De Rerum Natura, the image of the shipwreck watched from shore expresses the safety—and the privilege—of the uninvolved observer. Over the centuries, this image has been revisited countless times. And yet, in today’s context, invoking it feels—at least to me—misleading. What we experience now is not the cold detachment of not feeling, but the anxiety of feeling too much without knowing how to act.

Put differently: indignation has not disappeared, nor has it withdrawn. It is present—visceral, pervasive. The question that haunts our time is not “Why don’t we care?” but “What are we supposed to do with this urgent, ethical unrest?” How do we translate a widespread moral impulse into coherent, effective action?

We are not living in the emotional numbness described by Günther Anders, but rather in what Knud Løgstrup called an unformed ethical demand: a deep and genuine moral pressure that struggles to take shape, to become shared language or transformative gesture.

The crisis of disintermediation over the past few decades has only deepened this unfinished transition. The widespread desire for direct voice—bypassing parties, unions, and civil organizations—has eroded the structures that once translated individual concern into civic capacity. Imperfect as they were, those institutions served as catalysts, amplifying collective energy. Their erosion has left behind a vacuum—of meaning and of effectiveness.

Disintermediation has instead ushered in a wave of spontaneous self-representation—often sincere, sometimes courageous, but rarely able to articulate a coherent vision. The result is a proliferation of voices that speak with urgency but without continuity, without accountability, without the cultural scaffolding necessary to orient dissent toward a shared project. Authenticity has replaced competence—but in doing so, has paralyzed transformation.

Today, those who engage sincerely in public life often find themselves speaking to interlocutors who do not listen, do not respond, do not translate. The problem, then, is not public apathy—it is the fragility of the structures meant to welcome and amplify public concern. Our collective sense of impotence does not stem from popular disinterest, but from a system that has lost, in large part, its generative capacity.

There is no doubt that indifference—as Anders defined it—offered a sharp lens to interpret the moral dullness of the 20th century, a time marked by desensitization to horror and the chasm between technical power and ethical responsibility. But to reuse that framework now risks sounding deeply out of step with the present.

In stark contrast stands the speech delivered by Pope Francis on October 16, 2021, to the Popular Movements. On that occasion, the Pope did not call for collective emotion to be reignited, nor did he lament an insensitive humanity. Instead, he offered a path of construction: to organize hope, to structure dissent, to anchor solidarity in durable bonds—urging a move beyond reactive outrage toward proactive transformation.

That message remains timely: indignation is a resource only when it finds fertile ground in which to take root, time in which to mature, and tools through which to become embodied. Without that work, civic emotions remain voiceless—or evaporate into ephemera.

We don’t need to feel more. We need to act better.

Indignation, if it doesn’t become a shared gesture, is just background noise.

But if it finds a viable path forward, it can still generate the kind of real change in history that, in these difficult days, we urgently long for.

This article was originally published in the Italian daily newspaper Avvenire on July 24, 2025.