If you search for Kitty Genovese, you’ll find that the actual story shows not bystander apathy (as commonly depicted), but bystanders’ lack of data to demonstrate that something serious was happening. As to bystander apathy, it tends to be a group phenomenon. Typically if you’re in trouble, you’d do better to be observed by one person or a small group than a large group.
If you think you may be the only other person posting who can be lumped in with **Rigamarole’s ** world view, I would just be quiet and let us think that maybe, just maybe, you aren’t a soul-felching septic ulcer on the ass of humanity.
I just wanted to thank you for this post and post number 26 in this thread for my two longest and hardest laughs of the day.
Sadly enough, at the time, the answer to #26 was “yes.”
You’re right. I think I would behave differently than the OP, and I know I wouldn’t be posting about it on a message board, but some of us are the people the OP described who walked by laughing.
Would I be one of those people? I don’t think I would, but how can I know?
Obviously, the thing on the lawn was one of Them. If he’d been one of Us, Rigamarole would have checked vital signs, offered help, and contacted the appropriate authorities. We look out for Us. They barely register as human.
You mean you have no friends? That wouldn’t surprise me.
And it was fucking freezing in the SF Valley last night. Chilly today, too.
Yes, I know that to those of you watching the Rose Parade today, from inside your snowbound homes, L.A. looks utopian. But it’s cold enough here that anyone getting sprayed with water is at risk. The fact that the sun was out is irrelevant.
So I’ve read (I’m reading both the MPSIMS thread and this one at the same time as I usually do with pit threads spawned off of board happenings).
I live in a large city too. In downtown Phoenix, homeless people and bums are no rare sight. And while I wouldn’t–like a lot have said in here and the other topic–call the police at any little happenstance I came across, I’d at least check someone who was passed out by or on my own property. Especially if they were giving no reaction to things that usually cause some sort of stimulation, such as being blasted by cold water.
Just not too smart…however I think by now he or she may have had it hammered in. Having this topic go on for another 4 pages would probably be overkill and beating a dead homeless man.
Well here’s a serious question. Say that’s true and he didn’t help because he’s a snob and he doesn’t help “bums.” Does that make it worse? Because, to me, not helping is not helping. Not helping a bum because he’s a bum is no worse than not helping a bum because you don’t help anyone, is it? Or is it?
It’s a good question. I think that one way to know is to consider what you actually do. When you see someone who might need help, do you evaluate the likelihood that they need assistance and attempt to provide or enable it? What do you do when you meet people who seem to be down on their luck? How do you respond to requests for help that seem legitimate? I’d assume that these and related questions would help clarify what you’d do in a situation like the one described in the original OP.
My thoughts exactly.
I hope that if I saw someone that was obviously in need of help, I would help them-- and that is definitely how my code of ethics operates. That said, I think it is very easy for the shit-this-makes-me-uncomfortable-walk-on-by part of the brain to justify pretty much anything short of geysering up blood; “oh, he must be asleep; he must have a condition; he probably just has a nasty cough”.
I don’t know what you mean by my “world view”. I am able to divorce my idealistic view of a perfect me working in 100% accordance with my ethical code from a visualization of what I might do in a realistic situation. The fact is, most of us do things that we cannot ethically justify, whether out of convenience, social fears, or whatever. Do you ever purchase clothes manufactured by major garment companies? If so, how do your ethics jibe with the fact that you are supporting companies that contract from factories that employ child workers in dangerous conditions, factories where rape of female workers is common, systemic, and not dealt with? All of us knowingly make unethical decisions daily (feel free to disagree that you do, but I don’t think you will win that debate). That doesn’t make them right. But it doesn’t mean it makes sense to speak as if we live in a fantasy world where everyone’s actions and beliefs are perfectly aligned.
So I suppose I am a “soul-felching septic ulcer on the ass of humanity”, if that means “acknowledger of an unfortunate truth”.
If urbanites are as badass as they claim, doesn’t that put them in a better position to help?
Do you happen to know who in this thread are “urbanites” and who aren’t? The answers may surprise you.
Well, just since you asked, I do NOT buy clothes from big retailers who employ unfair labor practices. Why not? Because I am able to make that choice not to do harm to my fellow man.
My “favorites” is populated by websites for companies that sell clothing and other items manufactured by fair trade companies. If you can tell me how to share my favorites with you, I will gladly do so. Its not a hard decision to make. Just like assisting a poor man who is unconscious in a sprinkler is not a hard decision to make either.
Meh, YMMV.
Not to mention that many “urbanites” live in very well-to-do, even sheltered parts of their cities. Seeing that the original comment came not long after I posted (points at location), I’ll just note that I used to live in a really crummy part of Minneapolis. I also have worked in Chicago for nearly a decade, within a few blocks of some of the crappy CHA housing projects and in what’s generally thought of as a “bad neighborhood.” I take public transportation in the city of Chicago, including to get to and from work. I deal with panhandlers daily.
I also, however, work in the medical field and for the love of all that’s good and holy, if I saw someone wrapped up in a coat, and apparently passed out while cold water rains down on them (or some other similar should-be-waking-up/that-doesn’t-look-right situation), I would at the very minimum call for an ambulance! And fuck, I don’t think it takes medical knowledge to realize that.
My brother-in-law used to be a maintenance man/live-in landlord for a funky artist-community apartment building, as well as an artist. He didn’t have health insurance. He was also a “closet” alcoholic, and it wasn’t discovered until he started coughing up blood and passed out, in serious liver failure due to alcoholic cirrhosis. He’s fortunate that my sister-in-law was there to save him by calling an ambulance. I visited him every day for months in the ICU of Chicago’s county hospital - where all the poor folks with no insurance and no other option go, often waiting several hours in the ER if they “only” have something that isn’t going to kill them pretty shortly - and I saw how a lot of people there reacted to him, a middle-aged alcoholic man with no insurance who nearly killed himself drinking. If he’d passed out on the street instead, I wonder how many people would have stepped over him, a somewhat shabbily-dressed man with a reddened nose (he has rosacea) and scruffy hair. He lived, by the way. Against predictions, his liver “fixed” itself, and the stroke he had while recovering didn’t do too much damage. He’s taken up lessons in some esoteric Japanese flutes that few non-Japanese even study, as well; it’s good to see the stroke didn’t damage the creative portions of his brain. He’s an amazing man, and I know how lucky he was, both to be stricken when in a “good” situation where he was seen immediately and to have recovered at all.
Fair enough, and well done. Are you a vegan? Do you ever buy Coca-Cola or Shell products? Do you ever drive a car? My point is not at all to have an ethical pissing contest-- you might well win. My point is that anyone living in our society deals with some level of ethical dissonance in day-to-day life, and it doesn’t make sense to condemn the acknowledgement of that reality. In fact, the only way to win the moral struggle within is to acknowledge it.
Eh, fuck all you all. You accept living in such a shiite community that allows humans to crash out in your front yard for whatever the reason. Fuck that. Either you get his sorry ass up and out of your yard or you help him out. Christ, who raised you? :mad:
My side of the thread distilled into seventeen words.