"The Perils of Indifference," Vocabulary from the speech

As part of the Millennium Lecture series at the White House, Elie Wiesel defined indifference (etext found here) to an audience he knew had the power to recognize and prevent its dangers.

Here are links to our lists for other texts by the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate: Hope, Despair and Memory, Night
20 words 4137 learners

Learn words with Flashcards and other activities

Definition First
Print Flashcards

Other learning activities

Answer a few questions about each word. Use this to prep for your next quiz! Compete with other teams in real time to see who answers the most questions correctly! Test your spelling acumen. Read the definition, listen to the word and try spelling it!

Teaching tools

Create and assign quizzes to your students to test their vocabulary. Assign learning activities including Practice, Vocabulary Jams and Spelling Bees to your students, and monitor their progress in real-time.

Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. gratitude
    a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation
    Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the humanity of the human being.
  2. indifference
    the trait of remaining calm and seeming not to care
    What is indifference? Etymologically, the word means "no difference."
  3. compassion
    a deep awareness of and sympathy for another's suffering
    A strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur between light and darkness, dusk and dawn, crime and punishment, cruelty and compassion, good and evil.
    Etymologically, the word can be broken down in Latin into "com" which means "together" and "pati" which means "to suffer, endure." Here, examples are given of opposites that an attitude of indifference would erase, but the entire speech suggests that the opposite of indifference is compassion.
  4. virtue
    the quality of doing what is right
    Can one possibly view indifference as a virtue?
  5. harrowing
    causing extreme distress
    Is it necessary at times to practice it simply to keep one's sanity, live normally, enjoy a fine meal and a glass of wine, as the world around us experiences harrowing upheavals?
  6. seductive
    tending to entice into a desired action or state
    Of course, indifference can be tempting -- more than that, seductive.
  7. despair
    a state in which all hope is lost or absent
    It is, after all, awkward, troublesome, to be involved in another person's pain and despair.
  8. consequence
    the state of having important effects or influence
    Yet, for the person who is indifferent, his or her neighbor are of no consequence.
    A consequence can also be "the outcome of an event." This definition is seen when Wiesel asks about indifference: "What are its courses and inescapable consequences?" But the example sentence is focused on how an indifferent person sees others as inconsequential ("lacking worth or importance").
  9. anguish
    extreme distress of body or mind
    Their hidden or even visible anguish is of no interest.
  10. abstraction
    a concept or idea not associated with any specific instance
    Indifference reduces the other to an abstraction.
  11. abandon
    leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch
    We felt that to be abandoned by God was worse than to be punished by Him. Better an unjust God than an indifferent one.
  12. elicit
    call forth, as an emotion, feeling, or response
    Even hatred at times may elicit a response. You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it. Indifference elicits no response.
  13. benefit
    be advantageous for
    And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor -- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.
  14. plight
    a situation from which extrication is difficult
    The political prisoner in his cell, the hungry children, the homeless refugees -- not to respond to their plight, not to relieve their solitude by offering them a spark of hope is to exile them from human memory.
  15. deny
    refuse to recognize or acknowledge
    And in denying their humanity we betray our own.
  16. consolation
    the comfort you feel when soothed in times of disappointment
    And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies.
  17. insensitive
    not noticing or caring about the feelings or needs of others
    Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far?
  18. intervention
    care provided to improve a situation
    Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents be allowed anywhere in the world?
    The chosen definition is connected to the humane perspective of Elie Wiesel. But since he is addressing the President, he is also connecting to a more political definition: "a policy of meddling in the affairs of other countries."
  19. famine
    a severe shortage of food resulting in starvation and death
    Every minute one of them dies of disease, violence, famine.
  20. profound
    of the greatest intensity; complete
    And together we walk towards the new millennium, carried by profound fear and extraordinary hope.
    The adjective also means "showing intellectual penetration or emotional depth" and "far-reaching and thoroughgoing in effect." All the definitions fit: the fear is intense because it is brought on by the knowledge of all the horrors, pains, and injustices in the world that we cannot afford to be indifferent to.
Created on Thu Apr 23 12:59:14 EDT 2015 (updated Mon Aug 14 12:17:14 EDT 2017)

Sign up now (it’s free!)

Whether you’re a teacher or a learner, Vocabulary.com can put you or your class on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement.