figurative Thousands of people are starving to death while the world shrugs its shoulders (= shows no interest or care). She shrugged indifferently. In reply to their questions, she just shrugged. He shrugged and looked resigned. You can't just shrug your shoulders and do nothing about the situation! "What shall we do?"
If you shrug, you raise your shoulders to show that you are not interested in something or that you do not know or care about something. I shrugged, as if to say, 'Why not?'
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English shrug1 /ʃrʌɡ/ W3 verb (shrugged, shrugging) [intransitive, transitive] to raise and then lower your shoulders in order to show that you do not know something or do not care about something I just shrugged my shoulders and ignored him.