India Together: As inequalities rise, the moral commons is vanishing

If you think we Indians have a cultural heritage of apathy towards poor, Rajesh Kasturirangan tries to formalize it and explain it.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/jun/rkr-moralcom.htm --- Unlike disaster situations, where media images can compel our sympathy, daily life does not evoke strong reactions so our sympathy has to be constructed out of other inputs. Whatever these inputs might be, they should make it possible for us to see the world in terms of the 'other'. We need a natural catalyst for grouping human beings of different backgrounds into one moral space. And one of the best resources for this is 'proximity'. We need a natural catalyst for grouping human beings of different backgrounds into one moral space. For it to be natural, the 'moral grouping principle' should be one that has a foundation in human psychology. And one of the best resources for this is 'proximity'. From the Gestalt psychologists onwards, we know that human beings group objects and events that are close to each other in space and time. Our ethical capacities are partly based on perceptual capacities. My claim is simple: common physical spaces and common actions in our daily lives will lead to common moral spaces and the construction of a moral commons. In other words, we need common activities of work and play and common spaces for recreation and worship.