My, personal experience is completely different, I found the States and the Americans ( Ironically, the New Yorker's were the best… A big HELLO guys) ,much more welcoming and inclusive than the people in most European countries. But, I do understand your point. For years now I have been trying to fight ( with no success of course) the same effect in my society… and I have been seeing it all over other places too.

With the global proliferation of democracy & the free market capitalism ( which somehow seem to always go hand-in-hand, when, in principle, they shouldn’t) the notion of “individualism” has also been spreading through societies which, traditionally, abhor the idea of putting an individual before the group and it is causing serious damage.

I honestly do not fully comprehend why, yes, there is the usual explanation of “the people who switched/changed/evolved their previous systems into freshly baked democracies, understand that now , within the “free market” framework, they have to bust their asses 16 hours a day in order to make ends-meet. and, if they want to make it rich ( and who doesn’t?) they have to go even further than that. Now, if you spend your days working and/or thinking about working, you do not have time for anything else, hens, people become individualistic”

But I do not buy it!

There is something else, something deeper that stems form the system itself which is making people ( especially the younger ones) forget everything and everyone besides themselves- Maybe it is a combination of several factors ( society changes, lifestyle changes, social networks, economy) which causes it but it can not be good in any way. Yet, mot people do not see, or they ignore he effects.

DO not get me wrong, I am not saying that people should stop thinking about themselves altogether, or that they should stop trying to secure better living for themselves or their families. But, people, as individuals, should care more about the others … if for no other reason than the most selfish one in existence… IF you help them out today they might help you out sometime in the future.

But no… these days there seems to be more importance given to things/objects, than there is to the people. Individuals cry crocodile tears and send pocket-change donations when they see the footage of hungry children 3 000 miles away, but they push away the child that begs on the street in front of their building.

I remeber ( everyone above a certain age remembers) how, whenever someone id something extremely selfish as a kid, the grown ups used to say “YOu are not in the west. It is there that people fall down on the street and no one will help them” .

Well, I am afraid that it might happen that they wont help you out here anymore either.

This is not the end… actually, I was just about to start with the real rant. But I will leave that for later. …

Point is…. something has to be done before we forget we are humans altogether