The Endangerment of Disinterest

In life, there are things that don't always make perfect sense, aspects that are uncontrollable. We find that if we stand up for something of tradition, or grab for something just beyond our reach, then we get figuratively "stoned". For instance, say you're running to be someone in higher power, but something goes wrong along the way, something that makes the people around you, that you're trying to impress, look at you with disgust, make you want to hide or run. Rumors spread like fire through a dry field. The words that are thrown at you like stones, leaving scrapes and bruises like any actual rock could leave.
In "The Lottery", the ending is almost sickening. Just reading that such a normal seeming community could do something so heinous as to torture an innocent person with a stoning, just because they drew a particular piece of paper, sounds extremely ludicrous. But even though the situation may be ridiculous, it seems only too real.
The situation ties to Eli Weisel's speech "The peril of Indifference" for reasons as simple as how people are very nonchalant about a bad situation, until they're involved, or they just don't want to be involved it all. Case in point, when "the St. Louis... was turned back to Nazi Germany" by the United States of America, with maybe 1000 Jews on its docks. North America never really got involved in the war until the incident at Pearl Harbour. Because it wasn't happening to us, we were indifferent to the overseas problems. Like with "The Lottery", Tessie Hutchinson didn't mind the idea of the yearly stoning, until her and her family was at risk.
When terrible things are happening worldwide, we don't do anything about it. Like bystanders we sit comfortably in our temperature controlled homes, on our recliners and couches, and watch horrors unfold on the news, and in the papers. We sit and wait, helplessly thinking there's nothing we can do. When will we learn that one person can create a mountain of difference if we stop this indifference?