"Reflecting on the dramatic shifts in public opinion, political leanings, and social norms, a friend recently asked how it's possible that so many people seem to have changed their values so quickly. The more unsettling answer is that many haven't changed their values at all; they've changed how much attention they can afford to give. Increasingly, people aren't asking what they believe, but how much they can still carry."
"We like to believe that obedience is a matter of belief. That people comply because they agree, because they're persuaded, or at least because they're afraid. But most of the time, obedience and even fear have very little to do with belief at all. People often obey systems they know are wrong not because they're convinced, but because resistance is exhausting."
Persistent exposure to nonstop dramatic news and crises exhausts people's mental bandwidth. Obedience often results from depletion rather than conviction or fear; people comply because resistance is tiring. Chronic information saturation narrows attention, impairs higher-order judgment, and increases tolerance for ambiguity. Standards for acceptability decline as energy to contest problems dissipates. Many choose disengagement as a survival strategy to conserve limited cognitive resources rather than as genuine apathy. The cycle of urgency without clear paths to repair amplifies fatigue and dulls moral clarity, making sustained resistance difficult.
Read at Psychology Today
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