Elie Wiesel, 1986:
The opposite of love is not hate; it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness; it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy; it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death; it's indifference. Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
Robert Sapolsky, Humbio 150, Aggression II:
The opposite of love is not hate: the greatest harm you can do to someone who has been a victim of something is to be indifferent to their history, to deny that it has happened, to see it not be an imperative to make sure it never happens to anyone else again, et cetera, et cetera. The opposite of hate is indifference -- applied to physiology here, it is absolutely the case. When you look at what the sympathetic nervous system is doing, when you look at some of the stress hormones, love and hate are not opposites in the slightest -- they are physiologically very, very similar.
What I think that also tells you is how readily some humans psychopathologically can confuse the two states. When you look at some of these brain stem hindbrain spinal areas during these acts, love and hate are not opposites: they are very related to each other.
Elie Wiesel, 1996:
Be sensitive in every way possible.
About everything in life, be sensitive.
Insensitivity brings [out] indifference,
and nothing is worse than indifference.
Indifference makes the person dead before he dies. Indifference means that there is apathy that sets in, and you no longer appreciate beauty, friendship, goodness, or anything.
大江健三郎『新しい文学のために』(1988), 第3章:
シクロフスキーは、言葉による表現に焦点をおいて示した自動化・反射化の話を、日常生活の現場に戻してみせもする。日常生活の実際のあれこれの場面を考えよ。そこで意識が、いま現在、はっきりと気に留めないままに、過去のものとしてしまった事物は、あらためて思い出そうとしても再現不可能ではないかと。それは誰かにそこにあったに違いないが、過ぎ去ってしまえば、じつはなかったのも同然である…… [...]
忘れることがなければ思い出すこともできない、という気のきいた
中井久夫「いじめの政治学」所収『アリアドネからの糸』(1996):
古都風景の中の電信柱が「見えない」ように、繁華街のホームレスが「見えない」ように、そして善良なドイツ人の強制収容所が「見えなかった」ように「選択的非注意 selective inattention」という人間の心理的メカニズムによって、いじめが行われていても、それが自然の一部、風景の一部としか見えなくなる。あるいは全く見えなくなる。
Noam Chomsky, What is language and Why does it matter (2013):
For millenia, scientists had been satisfied with simple explanations for familiar phenomenon. ... As soon as Galileo and others allowed themselves to be puzzled about these facts, modern science began and it was quickly discovered that our beliefs are all senseless and our intuitions mostly wrong.
The willingness to be puzzled is a very valuable trait to cultivate. It's from early education to advanced enquiry.
*1:『ロシア・フォルマリズム論集』現代思潮社
