The Lottery: Relevance to Today's Society

Recently, my class completed the short story titled, 'The Lottery'. It is a chilling story of how a 'lottery' is conducted in a 300-strong village. Here's the catch: this 'lottery' is actually a ritual whereby the 'winner' gets stoned to death, even by his/her own family, as a sacrifice for good harvest. Naturally, you might think that these villagers are inhumane and cruel; and you will never be caught dead committing such acts. However, many of us do. It all boils down to the works of the society, and the idiom, 'The blind lead the blind'.
As a ritual, everybody feels it is sort of a duty to go along with this 80-over year old custom, resulting in the heartless act of killing to take place. However, the real cruelty is the fact that none of the villagers actually stopped to think, " Is this right?" or, "Why am I doing this?" They just assumed it was right since everyone was doing it, adopting a 'let's go with the flow' mentality.
That brings me to my point that the society can sometimes blind us and blur the line that separates right from wrong. Everyone is sure to have committed a fault just like that. Of course, it probably wouldn't be to the extent of causing a death, but we still have to be aware that a small sin doesn't mean no sin. I think we should be aware of the appeal that the author Shirley Jackson is trying to make, and put in effort to elucidate this line that separates right from wrong.