Apathy should become the eighth deadly sin of the modern age, taking its place alongside the traditional vices of greed, gluttony, envy, sloth, pride, lust and wrath, a British poll said on Wednesday.
Apathy, defined as a lack of interest or emotion towards people and events, topped a survey of BBC radio listeners, comfortably beating selfishness, hypocrisy and indifference.
”I thought apathy would score highly right from the start. Incidentally, there’s something paradoxical about all these people getting steamed up about apathy,” noted Joan Bakewell, presenter of the BBC show whose listeners compiled the chart.
”I think we’re secretly guilty of it ourselves. Who hasn’t said ‘Oh, who cares?’ at some time?” she said.
Religion itself narrowly missed out on a top 10 place, while less traditional sins also included ”celebrity-ism” — the obsession with fame and the famous — poor diction, dropping litter and ”grumpy old git-ism”.
The top 20:
— Sapa-AFP