Would you come to the aid of dying man in the street?
If you said yes, you'd be wrong 9 out of 10 times.
A little more than a week ago ago in my hometown of Hartford, CT, and 10 minutes from my house, a 78 year old man was hit by two cars, thrown over the hood, and left unassisted by a small crowd of bystanders as the man lay motionless on the ground. You might have missed the story entirely if not for an actual video of the incident and top story from the New York Times circulating the net. The reaction is one of are now referring to the "scary anonymity of the modern street." The police chief himself issuing the blistering statement:
“At the end of the day we’ve got to look at ourselves and understand that our moral values have now changed. We have no regard for each other."
But it's more than it, really.
Hartford's far from being a cradle of good Samaritanism, but it's no poster child for apathy either. In times of strong emotional reaction to horrifying events, the mind has a tendency to rationalize otherwise unacceptable events by distancing itself from reality. It's a protective, knee-jerk reaction, but it doesn't make it an appropriate long-term response.
You see when I was an undergrad I had the honor of working with man by the name of Ervin Staub. Dr Staub was a Holocaust survivor and now speaks internationally on the topic of mass violence, genocide, and international relations. What is more timely to this post is that Staub began the path to uncovering the roots of international phenomenon by studying the basic willingness of people to help one another on the side of the street. In the aftershock of the now famous Kitty Genovese case of the mid 1960's he conducted study after study trying to isolate the specific factors that motivate us to help each other. As written about by the NY Times,
In one of those now most often cited, students at Princeton Theological Seminary were asked to go to a nearby chapel and give an extemporaneous sermon on the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. As they walked to the chapel, they passed a man slumped in a doorway, moaning for help. About two-thirds of those who thought they had plenty of time stopped to help, but only 10 percent of the students who thought they were late did so.
9 out of 10 people are too busy to assist... even when on the way to the chapel to deliver a lesson to others on assisting others. This is not reality TV. It's real social phenomenon referred to as the Bystander Effect. It's what Staub has spent his entire life and dozens of similar studies dedicated to connecting to genocides like the Holocaust and others across the globe. It's what you and I claim would never happen in our hometown. It's what we all assume we would never let go by unnoticed. It's what happens every day, in every nation, within every generation.
It begins with everyday people observing everyday events. And ends with nations massacring millions of people in the name of ethnic cleansing or political agenda.
And if you think 1 in 10 are bad odds, think again. The number of people and cars that passed by Angel Arce Torres before a police cruiser stopped to assist him on May 30, 2008?
20.
