" Most people are satisfied with a world in which survival is for the fittest, "might is right," competition is required, and winning is called the highest good.
     If such a system happens to also produce "losers" so be it, so long as you are not among them.
     Most people are satisfied, even though such a model produces people who are often killed when they are judged "wrong", starved and rendered homeless when they are "losers," oppressed and exploited when they are not "strong."
     Most people define "wrong" as that which is different from them.  Religious differences, in particular, are not tolerated, nor are many social, economic, or cultural differences.
     Exploitation of the underclass is justified by the self congratulatory pronouncements from the upper class of how much better off the underclass (victims) are now than they were before these expoitations.  By this measure the upperclass can ignore the issue of how all people ought to be treated if one were being truly fair, rather than merely making a horrible situation a tiny bit better - and profit obscenely in the bargain.
                                                                        
     Most people laugh when one suggests any kind of system other than the one currently in place, saying that behaviors such as competing and killing and the "victor taking the spoils" are what make their civilization great!  Most people even think there is no other natural way to be, that it is the nature of humans to behave in this manner, and that to act any other way would kill the inner spirit that drives man to succeed. (at what?!)
     Difficult as it is for truly enlightened beings to understand, most people on your planet believe in this philosophy, and that is why most people don't care about the suffering masses, the oppression of minorities, the anger of the underclass, or the survival needs of anyone but themselves, and their immediate families.
    Most people do not see they are destroying their Earth, the very planet which gives them their life, because their actions seek only to enhance their quality of life.  Amazingly, they are not far sighted enough to observe that short terms gains can produce long term losses, and often do...and will.
     Most people are threatened by a concept such as a collective good, a one world overview, or a God who exists in unity with all creation, rather than separate from it.
     This fear of anything leading to unification and your planet's glorification produces division, disharmony, and discord.  Yet, you do not seem to have the ability even to learn from your own experience, and so you continue with the same results.
     The inability to experience the suffering of another as one's own is what allows such suffering to continue.
     Separation breeds indifference, false superiority.  Unity produces compassion and genuine equality. This level of conciousness (separateness) could best be described as primitive." 
From Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh

My thoughts: Divisive ideologies imposed upon us by religious, political, and media voices only enable their agendas.  Some of these voices have enjoyed undue credibility for far too long. (Many enjoy undue credibiltiy just by being on TV, Radio, Print, and now the Internet)  Question the message. Question fear mongering ( a very effective tool -scare people into believing what you wish), look behind the curtain...what is the real intent here?  Or, live out the consequences of obliviousness, which is NOT an option.