When violence broke out between Park Police and protesters at an otherwise peaceful anti-amalgamation rally in August, many Animals (both in attendance and at home) assumed that The Park’s court system would deal with the fallout. After an open investigation into the matter, which relatively few Animals attended and which was only covered superficially by Park media, the event receded into memory. Never mind that one Goose was killed and several others were injured at the event; there was The Park’s film festival to attend and hibernation preparations to be made, among other (seemingly more important) things.

Contrast this with the intense reaction to the murder of the Tartan Crab, the Groundhog Day violence, and the Mongoose weather trial and you might think you see a growing trend toward apathy among Park residents.

That is, in fact, what is happening, says veteran psychoanalyst Dr. Berthilidis Strix, who is best known as co-author of the book, The Silent Cluck.

In her new book, Shaken But Not Stirred, Strix discusses the two distinct lines that she sees forming in The Park: growing prosperity alongside growing apathy. In Strix’s view, it is at the point at which these lines intersect that they become a threat to our way of life.

Unlike many analysts, Strix believes that these two seemingly independent streams feed each other and that, in fact, our growing apathy is responsible, in part, for our growing prosperity:

“Without this new-found ability to ignore the plight of others, it would be next to impossible for us, in good conscience, to amass these great quantities [of food and other material goods]…and, now, the pursuit of same has become the foundation of our growing economy.”

Strix is highly critical of what she calls this “new division of consciousness” and warns that unchecked apathy will have dire consequences for Park Animals in the future.

“We need only look to other species to see the end result [of apathy]”, she writes.

While Strix emphasizes in Shaken But Not Stirred that she can offer no solutions, one suspects that these may appear before long in a follow-up book. Her insights are far too important to serve only as philosophical fodder.