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People aren't thinking, in part, because they don't have the time to think. If I look at life today for the average family versus 30-35 years ago, there's 'way less free time, 'way more work, 'way less time together, 'way less time to think. I don't consider this a plot, but people who are too busy don't really have time to think about what's going on around them, and why. They just take whatever pap sounds good and run with it. Gotta get to the next job, gotta get the kids to soccer practice, and so on.
This is why something like a mass economic dislocation -- like the last great depression -- is one of the scariest things that a politician can conceive of. Because suddenly you've got millions of people with _lots_ of time to think, and a lot of grievances to think about. To a lesser degree we had that in the 60s -- not so much because there was an economic problem, but because there was _so_ much economic slack that whole classes of people had time to think about things like the Vietnam War, women's rights, civil rights, and so on. And, to a degree, get involved.
A good friend of mine runs a volunteer organization some distance from here, the kind that traditionally involves a couple of night meetings a month and some weekend work. And he's dying on the vine, because although this is a worthy and long-established cause, the only people who usually have _time_ to volunteer nights are senior citizens who aren't strong enough to do the work. The 40s and 50s -type volunteers of yesterday are too busy on the treadmill of life.
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