Why are people like this these days

[~christina~]

I wouldn't try to stop a mugging, I'd just be adding another victim to the crime.

I agree.

But I did see tv show where they say, "what would you do"? and they have various situations and one was where a person stole something. The result was that in every case they had to see someone mention that it was stolen for people to take action. One went so far as to punch the actor in the face..ouch.

 

[rewebster]

I never punched anyone in the face when I stepped in---but in the three times I remember stepping into a 'scenario' -- it was to break up a fight, not a mugging (I haven't been a onlooker to one yet)

 

[Evo]

Also, although I say I would have the presence of mind to take a video of a mugging, I actually witnessed a murder and nothing clicked until I was standing over the body with a pool of blood forming around him, well that and the woman that started screaming when she and her boyfriend walked out of the bar and almost stepped on him. It's just something you aren't expecting so it takes a while to "click". I guess if you live around crime, then you might be quicker to recognize it.

 

[rewebster]

was that the first murder you witnessed?

 

[Evo]

was that the first murder you witnessed?

The first and so far the only. Although I had two plain clothed detectives show up at an apartment I was living in when I was 18 because the girl that lived next to me had been murdered, but she wasn't murdered there. They wanted me to describe anyone I'd seen near her apartment. That's when I realized I really do not pay attention to what is going on around me and really suck at describing people. "Uhm, he was a guy, dark hair and a beard". They were so glad I could provide so much detail.

A friend of mine from work was also murdered. One of the Evo Child's best friends and a really sweet kid was killed (knife through the jugular) trying to break up a fight at an Indie music club. You don't want to get too close to me.

 

[rewebster]

--just seeing what type of crowd you hang around or live around


didn't you say one of your girlfriends (?) killed her husband, too?

 

[Evo]

didn't you say one of your girlfriends (?) killed her husband, too?

She wasn't my girlfriend, she was my boyfriend's ex girlfriend and my best friend's fiancee's ex wife and we all hung out in the same social circle. She was a high class golddigger. One of her ex-husbands is a household name in the US. I think she's still in prison. I don't think she did it, but I find it rather poetic justice.

 

[rewebster]

She wasn't my girlfriend, she was my boyfriend's ex girlfriend and my best friend's fiancee's ex wife and we all hung out in the same social circle. She was a high class golddigger. One of her ex-husbands is a household name in the US. I think she's still in prison. I don't think she did it, but I find it rather poetic justice.

boy, oh, boy--a lot of "ex" 's in that paragraph


sounds like a 'rough' social circle---- or, now, maybe, 'ex'-social circle


household name?---you mean like 'Ron Popeil' ? or one of the no-interest 'real estate investment infomercial' gurus?

 

[Evo]

household name?---you mean like 'Ron Popeil' ? or one of the no-interest 'real estate investment infomercial' gurus?

No, it's more respectable.

 

[rewebster]

Jim Baker? Jimmy Swaggert? Paul Crouch? Pat Robertson?

 

[Evo]

Jim Baker? Jimmy Swaggert? Paul Crouch? Pat Robertson?

I said respectable.

 

[Kurdt]

*Backs away from Evo*

Luckily I've never seen or known anyone that has been murdered. Hell I can't recall anyone I know even dying. Are you sure your father wasn't fond of scythes, black cloaks and white horses?

"Uhm, he was a guy, dark hair and a beard". They were so glad I could provide so much detail.

That could be me, except I shaved off my beard and I wasn't born then.

 

[mgb_phys]

But I did see tv show where they say, "what would you do"? and they have various situations

There was an exercise like that on Paris underground..
Unfortunately as they were staging the 'attack' a bunch of english squaddies came round the corner. The french didn't speak english, the english didn't speak french - nobody was in uniform. I think the actor got quite badly hurt before they managed to pull everybody off him.

 

[rewebster]

Also, although I say I would have the presence of mind to take a video of a mugging, I actually witnessed a murder and nothing clicked until I was standing over the body with a pool of blood forming around him, well that and the woman that started screaming when she and her boyfriend walked out of the bar and almost stepped on him. It's just something you aren't expecting so it takes a while to "click". I guess if you live around crime, then you might be quicker to recognize it.

reading over that again, it sounds like a Mickey Spillane book---you know, evo, you should do something constructive, like quitting your job and writing a mystery fiction novel

 

[Evo]

*Backs away from Evo*

What, just because people around me get murdered, the radio station I worked for got blown up by the Ku Klux Klan, a client of mine had their manufacturing plant blow up right after I visited and another client died from a car bomb in his car after I was there? Geeze, people might think that I'm a jinx.

 

[rewebster]

no, maybe just hanging around the wrong 'ex'-crowd----


and Schrodinger's Dog said in the other thread that you have 'mad staring eyes' and that you're not hot-- --is that the truth?

 

[Evo]

and Schrodinger's Dog said in the other thread that you have 'mad staring eyes' and that you're not hot-- --is that the truth?

Absolutely. Not only is my eyesight deteriorating, but my basal body temperature is well below normal.

 

[rewebster]

Absolutely. Not only is my eyesight deteriorating, but my basal body temperature is well below normal.

my, my, my...I'm glad you didn't post that on 'some' other forum-----that could be paraphrased in a way that wouldn't be too complimentary...

...but 'we' (er..uh..hmmm) aren't like THAT on this forum!

 

[my_wan]

I remember stopping on Bee Line expressway outside Orlando Florida to help a family whos car broke down. They turned out to be my neighbors in Tennessee. I can't count the times I have taken people to get parts and even did the mechanical work to get them going. However, at most I suspect that in the situation you described I would have simply asked if you were ok, without directly offering any help. Even then only after you remained on the ground and I was already near enough to ask. You would have only received the help you directly asked for.

It has nothing to do with a lack of sympathy these days. The level of sympathy in people today is greater than any time in human history, or even in my lifetime. In fact your expectation of help from strangers is a relatively recent phenomena. In the not too distant past your expectation would have rather been fear. Our modern mythology of degrading empathy is based in our feelings of guilt about our past actions with other societies. Itself a recent phenomena, in spite of the fact that these other societies were quiet as bloody as we were in their own context.

So why no direct offer of help? What happened already occurred and no action is going to change that. You remained on the ground so it became a judgment call with observers if you were injured that badly or your day was simply destroyed and you weren't sure how to proceed, even if there was some pain. So presumably people judged that in spite of pain you remained capable of dealing with it yourself. So the person considering helping you then must consider how their motivations are going to be interpreted. That's not a pretty thing to have to consider. What do you do when the primary motivation for helping seems to be to show how nice you are? In a one on one will it be judged as an attempt to acquire any type of favor? 99% of everything people do is balanced against how others are going to judge their motivations. This is not always easy when social expectations change so drastically as they have even in my life.

In earlier times helping in such a situation would have been interpreted as taking a dominate roll over you. If people close to you found out it could even be deadly. Society is not by any means degrading. What used to be expected publicly defensible behavior is now criminal, even having a butter knife in your school lunchbox. It hasn't been many years since killing your wife was defensible. Cops thought little about mutual fights between people in my life. I personally have legally drove while drinking. Earlier last century New York was far bloodier and lawless than the frontier, Indians and all. If you think things are bad today just be glad you weren't born many years sooner.

I hope your ok now. Good luck.

 

[rewebster]

I think you used the two words, and may be where part of the problem lies--but it seems they may have been used interchangeably--but they can't be.

There is a group of people that are sympathetic, and sympathy seems that it can be both taught and felt on a more broad and generalized level; but, there are a lot fewer people who are truly empathetic.

The number of people that I've met that I recognize as being empathetic is very, very few in number--to the point that, sometimes, I think, that it is almost more genetic than socially 'taught'.

From one definition, a good psychiatrist should be sympathetic and very empathetic to recognize the situation that the person is in. A person, like the Michael Douglas character in "Greed", has very little sympathy, and little to no empathy.

 

[mgb_phys]

I don't think it is a lack of empathy so much as (possibly unfounded) fear.

1, Is this person really hurt or are they drunk/drugged/crazy
2, Are they a mugger, is this a trick
3, Are they bleeding - will I catch something
4, Will I be sued if I help them (especially if you are a medical profesional or in the USA)
5, Will I be arrested/suspected of hurting them, especially if I'm the wrong skin colour or they come round confused and point at me as the person that attacked them.
6, If it's a child and I am a man alone I don't want to be seen anywhere near them.

If you lived in London/New York and move to a small town in Canada, it takes a while for you not to automatically brush past anyone on the street who tries to talk to you!

 

[rewebster]

I don't think it is a lack of empathy so much as (possibly unfounded) fear.

1, Is this person really hurt or are they drunk/drugged/crazy
2, Are they a mugger, is this a trick
3, Are they bleeding - will I catch something
4, Will I be sued if I help them (especially if you are a medical profesional or in the USA)
5, Will I be arrested/suspected of hurting them, especially if I'm the wrong skin colour or they come round confused and point at me as the person that attacked them.
6, If it's a child and I am a man alone I don't want to be seen anywhere near them.

If you lived in London/New York and move to a small town in Canada, it takes a while for you not to automatically brush past anyone on the street who tries to talk to you!

that may be a big part of it--


I think I see the world/some people a whole lot differently than maybe some others.

I just got off the phone with four different people, and all of them seemed to talk in a totally selfish and self-centered way. Maybe that's just people in general anymore, or it's just becoming more apparent to me. Everything that we talked about HAD to be about them, and relate to them. If a new topic came up, they would easily find a quick way to relate in back to them. I'd say something about how beautiful the weather was, and their first word out of their mouth was "I"--"I want...", "I have..", I, I, I...----and all of them seemed that way---... With one of them, I had to say 'I had to go...' just so I wouldn't get frustrated talking to her.

After I got off the phone, that Beatles song 'I, me, my' or whatever its name came to mind, and that part of it--" I, me, me, mine" repeating over and over again. One of them actually said, "does that have anything to do with me?" And two of them got really weird and defensive to the point of almost yelling at me when the subject didn't have anything to do with them, but somehow in their own mind they related it back to them.

I think part of the reason some people don't help is that they were never taught, or have to learn, how to deal with others in a non-self-centered way. ---spoiled children turning into spoiled adults.

 

[BobG]

I'm surprised they didn't help you. What a bunch of self-absorbed butt heads!

Your incident reminded me of an experiment we did in a social psychology class where we had to "accidentally" drop a bunch of pencils in a crowded area and observe who helped. Pretty much everyone in our class noticed that females are more likely to both give help and receive help. (Myself, I actually had pretty good luck with the guys when I dropped the pencils - I think maybe because I am older and they thought they were helping a teacher.) The guys almost never got help from other guys. In one case, one of the male students from our class wasn't even planning a "drop" and a group of guys happened to bump into him and scatter his pencils. They saw the whole thing happen, and knew it was their fault. But they kept on walking!

My favorite experiment was the Good Samaritan experiment, just because of the irony that was tossed in. Seminary students were required to go from one building to another to give a prepared talk. On the way there, they'd pass a person slumped in the doorway who would cough twice. The idea was to see how many of the seminary students would help the person laying in the doorway.

The variables:
Half of the group were to give a talk on jobs available in the seminary. Half of the group were to give a talk on the Good Samaritan parable.

One third of the group were given a prior task in the first building and released from it only when it was assured they'd be late in arriving to give their talk.
One third of the group were given a prior task to keep them from leaving early, but would definitely arrive on time for their talk unless they wasted too much time along the way.
One third of the group were released early enough that they had time to spare.

The amount of time the students had was the most significant factor in whether they helped the person in need. Ironically, at least a few seminary students that were late stepped directly over the person in need in their hurry to give their talk about the Good Samaritan . Still, students on their way to talk about the Good Samaritan were more likely to help the person in need, even if the subject of their talk wasn't as significant as the amount of time they had to get to their talk.

http://people.eku.edu/falkenbergs/psy397/chapter8/sld015.htm

I think the tendency to ignore others in need is a matter of people being very self-centered and only thinking of others when it's convenient for themselves.

Personally, I probably would have helped a person I saw fall on the sidewalk, but only because the first thing I would probably do is laugh and I'd feel kind of guilty . They probably wouldn't accept my help, but at least they'd have an opportunity to slug me.

 

[Zantra]

It's the "not me" syndrome of apathy. When lots of people are around everyone takes the attitude that someoone else will help. It's actually a known social dynamic, though the term escapes me.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

It's the "not me" syndrome of apathy. When lots of people are around everyone takes the attitude that someoone else will help. It's actually a known social dynamic, though the term escapes me.

Is it selfishness by virtue of misplaced self interest and fear? Because if no one helps then that's what it is.

 

[my_wan]

For me it's more a judgment call of what I can actually accomplish by helping. If someone is lying on the ground from a fall and doesn't appear beyond helping themselves I am far less likely to go out of my way. Just an opportunity to show how nice I am is not enough. If I was in a hurry and couldn't make that judgment call quickly enough I would be quicker to just ask if they were going to be ok. Otherwise I would watch long enough to be satisfied they were going to be ok.

Was that enough i's for one post? I'm not so cynical about people. The psychological issues that determine peoples actions are not generally intentionally selfish. We must take care of ourselves first, or otherwise we are being truly selfish asking others to carry our weight. When we switch gears can hinge on some subtle perceptions. The person who helped me when I needed it the most was holding a gun on me the whole time. It wasn't the least bit unreasonable to me at 3 am.

 

[Zantra]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Solitary individuals will typically intervene if another person is in need of help: this is known as bystander intervention. However, researchers were surprised to find that help is less likely to be given if more people are present. In some situations, a large group of bystanders may fail to help a person who obviously needs help. An example which shocked many people is the Kitty Genovese case. Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in 1964 by a serial rapist and murderer. The murder took place over a period of about a half hour, after which it was reported that dozens of alleged "witnesses" failed to help the victim. For this reason, the name Genovese syndrome or Genovese effect was used to describe the phenomenon at the time