The Catastrophe of Apathy "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing (Einstein, n.d.)." Einstein's attack on the selfish nature of this world is harsh, a little frightening, and completely true. Indeed, an egregious number of vicious citizens and domineering tyrants are met with a response that can only be labeled as apathy. This phenomenon of standing back and leaving the world to its own devices is known as the bystander effect, and it's nothing new. But what exactly is a bystander and how does one fight against the indifference of the masses? The term bystander is defined as someone who is aware of a present or future evil or danger, has the ability to take action, …show more content…
If a person is aware of tragedy, if they can bring relief to a situation, and they fail to take this opportunity, they have become an apathetic bystander. Marlow is guilty of this when he is on his steamboat with the cannibals and heading to Kurtz. While describing the cannibals, he comments, "For the rest, the only thing to eat - though it didn't look eatable in the least - I saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like half-cooked dough, of a dirty lavender color..." (Conrad, 1899, p. 66-67). Even though the cannibals are starving and Marlow has food, he does not give any to them at all. In this regard, he has changed dramatically since he first entered the Congo and saw the natives starving by the trees. Perhaps the epitome of the bystander effect is the case of Kitty Genovese. A strange man attacked her multiple times just outside, and eventually inside, her apartment building. Although several neighbors witnessed the event, only a few did anything to find help and none directly intervened. One particular man was the exemplar of a bystander. It was reported that while "the second attack was going on, there was this fellow at the top of the stairs who did open his door and saw it going on. He chose to slam the door" (What Really, 2014, para. 18). Later, when the police asked him about it, he replied, "I didn't want to get involved" (as cited in "What Really," 2014, para. 19). Moreover, the Bible rebukes this kind of behavior and James says, "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin" (James 4:17, ESV). The world has too many people that would like to pretend that justice does not concern them, and they are
The bystander effect refers to the tendency for an observer of an emergency to withhold aid if the:
In Miles Lehrman's documentary, Witness to the Holocaust, he argues, “A perpetrator is not the most dangerous enemy. The most dangerous part is the bystander because neutrality always helps the killer”, This is not a logical claim because bystanders merely witness it; however, they are not committing any crimes against laws or humanity. They may want to help the victim, but they may not do so because being a bystander is simply not illegal. Since forcing someone to be an upstander is illegal, people choose to not be an upstander because it puts them in an undesirable position. After all, standing up for the victim may put the upstander in danger along with the victim. Additionally, becoming an upstander does not guarantee that the victim will be safe and sound afterwards; the perpetrator may continue, perhaps with the upstander as another victim.
Diagnosed with cancer and given just months to live, Randy Pausch decided to give a last lecture. Randy felt this was important so that he may give a sort of goodbye to those who he cared about, share advice and life-experiences that he felt were important, and most importantly for his kids, whom would never really get to know him because of their age. This book is a collection of stories and general life advice that Randy felt was important to share before moving on.
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.” We are All Bystanders by Jason Marsh and Dacher Keltner is an article that reflects on the psychological and social phenomenon that refers to cases in which people do not offer any assistance or help to a victim. Studies say that a person's personality can determine how they react to a bystander situation. In a book called, The Heart of Altruism, author Kristen Monroe writes the altruistic perspective. Altruistic people are strongly connected to other humans and have a concern for the well-being of others. Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief exemplifies the bystander theory through Liesel and
As our textbook describes the bystander effect as the tendency for any given bystander to be less likely to give aid if other bystanders are present. To put it into my own words, I think that bystander effect is where people are less likely to help because of the diffusion of responsibility. We are more likely to help: the person appears to need and deserve help, if the person is in some way similar to us, the person is a woman, when we have just observed someone else being helpful, if we are not in a hurry, if we are in a small town or rural areas, when we are feeling guilty, when we are focused on others and not preoccupied, and when we are in a great/good mood (Myers).
Marlow is driven by morality and is able to see what is right and wrong; he is not blinded to the truth. The truth that these “civilized men” are destroying countless numbers of people so that they can worship th...
The bystander effect plays a key role in society today. More and more people ignore a person in distress.
... important technique the other used in this book. She had used foreshadowing to tell us that Robert was going to go for Edna and that Edna was going to swim way too far out. For example, Madame Ratignolle was telling Robert that Edna was not one of them and Edna would take his flirty actions seriously. Chapter VIII, page 19.
As Marlow tells his story we see and understand the situations Marlow faced. In his first encounter with the tribes men, Marlow steps into a "gloomy circle of some inferno", where dark figures surrounded him. He compares this incident with that of a massacre, the starving and wasting bodies lying in "confusion". Marlow then encounters a young black boy with a piece of white cotton string tied around his neck. This simple piece of string symbolizes the young boy's innocence. Shortly after Marlow offers the boy a biscuit, another one of the shapes approaches the river , crawling, and drinks of the water. Marlow could not stand the sight of the suffering any longer. It was as though he felt what they were feeling and just when he was willing to help, he stands up and walks away. The path where Marlow meets those that had traveled to an unknown land, and walked uncertain of where they where but sure of what they wanted, started here.
The bystander effect is one of the biggest reasons why Genocides keep occurring in our world today. The bystander effect is when you see something that you know should not be happening and you ignore it and expect someone else to take care of it, and then they just go on with their lives and act like they didn’t see anything. This is what made it possible for so many people to get away with it for so long, because they knew that the people will just act like nothing is going on. Mostly because they don’t want anything to happen to them or their families, which makes sense, you always want to protect your family, but if you do nothing, millions of other families are getting ripped apart and ruined. It is so important to know what is going on and put a stop to what we know is not right or okay on any level, and just not being a bystander is such a huge, important thing.
Bystander effect (Darley & Latane, 1970) refers to a decrease in response when there are bystanders around relative to no bystanders. Referring to a previous study stating that there are some cases in which group size may promote helping instead of hindering it (Fischer et al., 2011). Researchers then speculated on the possibility of positive influences from bystanders by taking public self-awareness into consideration. Researchers proposed that high public self-awareness would reverse the bystander effect in this study with 2 independent variables: bystander and presence on the forum. They are defined as number of bystanders (absent vs present) and salience of name (salient vs non-salient) respectively.
Sex is an important yet seemingly impolite subject in today’s society, and despite its implicit awkwardness, sex—and all of its taboos—needs to be discussed. The fact that we are so squeamish about discussing sex is ironic, since sex is a commonplace occurrence that nearly everyone, worldwide, will experience during their lifetime. Our society’s silence about sex creates a number of discrepancies in what is deemed societally and morally appropriate. One of the most important issues regarding sex is what makes it ethically permissible. Is consent enough or is there something more needed? Some philosophers argue that consent is substantial for considering if sex is moral; others disagree and claim that consent is the tip of the iceberg considering the morality of sex. I agree with the ladder; I believe that consent is important, but there needs to be equality in what each person receives from the sexual act itself, whether this be in the
Since they are powerless at first, it is hard to get their message out. Instead of starting out with the hard way of spreading the word peacefully with a campaign of some sort, they put fear on innocent powerless or the powerful. That fear just creates more problems, more things we have to find a solution to. For example, there are many people who are powerless against the majority of Americans who support Donald Trump. They want to get their message of not to support Trump to be heard, not just to those who agree with that statement, but to the Trump supporters too. So one person of an anti-trump group went to a Trump rally and shot a Trump supporter. By shooting them, they spread their message of how much they disagree against Donald Trump and that they are willing to go to the extreme measures in which they would kill an innocent supporter because of their belief. The person who shot them now has their message across by fear but now that has created another problem, not just the problem of Trump being a big threat to America, but now the fear of killers being out there because of their opinion of Trump. That one case of shooting may have inspired others to do so to get their thoughts across as
The concept of sensibility arose in the late 18th century; in particular through the social norms of the upper, refined class of society who were very reliant on larger-than-life emotional expression. The manners of women are most integral to the concept of sensibility. The female anatomy was linked to a woman’s theorised fragility; this concept was furthered by the natural reaction of many females, in that they would blush, weep and faint when confronted with certain situations. The concept of female fragility was sexualised during this period; yet it was accepted as it was considered to better the behaviour of men and in the same way it contributed to the subservient status of women. A sensible man was kind and understanding. Yet, if he too
Ben Franklin himself said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."