7 Comments

It's a loathsome concept but such a beautiful word for it.

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Exactly! I love the word (very fun to say), but it’s a shame what the word describes exists.

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There’s a lot of menefreghismo going around the USA these days

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Not just in the USA, I'm afraid, it's a global disease... 😓

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Unfortunately you are correct, but (in my opinion) the U.S.'s embracing of this mentality is helping to spread the disease.

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I don't like pointing fingers at others, especially when I know we're all somehow “infected” — some of us perhaps trying to fight the disease on a daily basis, because we know that life would seem so much easier if we only minded our own business... I think menefreghismo is the most severe form of individualism, I mean when individualism goes really, REALLY bad (a little individualism every now and then can be useful to recharge one's own batteries, so it's necessary!). What puzzles me most it's usually people who claim to be “patriots” who are the worst menefreghisti of all... Shouldn't patriotism care about the well-being of an entire nation, i.e. a very large community? 🤔

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This is exactly right, Giorgia, especially your comment about so-called patriotism. Those who crow the loudest about being patriots usually are the same ones who don't want to be inconvenienced. "Individualism" and "individual rights" is what has led to rampant gun obsession and gun violence in the U.S. People who (falsely) believe they have the right to own an assault weapon (this is not what the Second Amendment says) don't care that they are infringing on the right of everyone else to live free of the fear of violence. (Don't get me started...)

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