I don't know if this phenomenon has been brought up before, but given our aim is to open eyes and minds, I thought it might be important to let you know how deep the sleep has become for the vast majority of people. The example I give here actually happened, hard as that is to believe.
QuoteIn March, 1964, a New York City woman named Catherine ,ÄúKitty,Äù Genovese was raped and stabbed to death as she returned home from work late at night. According to a newspaper report published shortly thereafter, 38 people had witnessed some or all of the attack, which took place in two or three distinct episodes over a period of about a half hour,Äîand yet no one did anything to stop it; no one even reported it to the police until the woman was already dead.
And this is by no means a solitary event, although this was perhaps more blatantly violant than other cases, there are a surprisingly large amount of rape, murder, or just plain muggings that happen in plain sight, where people are aware of what is happening, but they do nothing to stop it.
There are a number of possible reasons why, psychologists have performed a variety of studies (details of which can be posted at request), but the outcome has proven that people only ever seem to act quickly when it is believed they are the only ones who can help, the greater the number of others they believe can assist, the less likely they are to act. This seems to imply that people can let this kind of thing go on if they believe someone else can do something about it.
Other possible reasons which have been suggested are denial- people simply refusing to believe that this event is happening, or at least is as bad as it really is- or repression- similiar, but the memory of the event is burried, repressed.
These theories are supported by the fact that some of the witnesses to the above case report say that they did not see or hear anything out of the ordinary, despite the fact that, given where they were at the time of the attack, they must have done.
Personally, I don't know which idea is most worrying- that they saw and heard the event and still did nothing, or that they were literally incapable of seeing and hearing it.
Either way, bystander apathy is something that we can observe in some small way every day, when the poor old person stumbles and spills their shopping and nobody helps, when people let the homeless man get beating by a drunken yob, when people let the little kid fire his bb gun at cats, people, more and more, label these things as "someone elses problem"
so the question is, how do you make people see these things as their problem?
Or is that impossible?
So long as people can rely on someone else then they wont act. Its that simple. I know this is the libertarian/anarchist cliche, but there was some Chinese philosopher (Chang Tzu?) who claimed policeman cause crimes, because they make people complacent, whereas when you have to rely on yourself then you take extraordinary measures for protection and so crime goes down. Basically, because people can rely on others they see no need to act, diffusion of responsibility.
There is also the lack of community present in many western societies too, which has to be considered. While the "community" of the past was often a piece of unrepetent bigotry, curtain-twitching and mob hatred dressed up in family values, it meant people knew who each other were. Now, mostly because of commuting, home work and longer hours/less holidays, few people know the names of the people in their street, except possibly the neighbours. And when you don't know someone, why should you risk your neck? Chances are you might get stabbed too.
Stick your neck out, maybe it gets slashed.
This is sad, but true.
Yes, that's a good reason not to intervene personally... but the distuirbing point was that nobody even contacted the police until the woman was already dead. No personal risk there, nothing that needed to be done beyond calling a number. As well as this, the attack actually took place with the man leaving and returning a few times, why didn't someone try and get her inside when he had gone? These people just left this woman to die.
Actually, I use this mass cowardice to my advantage. When I stick big propaganda stickers all over things, I do so openly, with NO attempt to hide what I'm doing.
People will do ANYTHING to "not notice" what I'm doing.
This is why I adopted you, Uncle Tigger! :P
A lot of people are shocked when they find out that the murder victim down the street was "a regular guy, had no involvement with crime."
Or that the raped woman was "walking home from work, not drunk, and wearing a suit."
The house that was broken into was "a family's home," is less of a surprise.
Same thing with the stolen car, nobody is surprised by that.
The guy who was assaulted by seven people? He probably had it coming, but maybe not.
People will do anything to convince themselves that they won't be a target of major crimes, but are terrified that they'll lose their stuff. Denial works wonders.
People believe in justice. They want to believe that the victim did something to deserve it. That bad things only happen to bad people. Karma.