About ‘bystander syndrome’
Rachel Lucas thinks clearly, and writes very well. Today on her blog, “artistry with a blunt instrument,” she wrote about a video going around the internet, about an elderly man injured in a hit and run accident by a motor vehicle - “Seriously: what the hell is wrong with people?”
Many observed that passersby watched but didn’t help the injured man, and no one tried to stop traffic, get help, for a very long (in terms of first aid) time. What set Rachel off were comments in various places,
And you know, I’ve been reading the comments everywhere I see this video posted, and I gotta tell you, I’m getting so freakin’ sick of hearing people (rarely but often enough to make me notice) say that “you don’t know what you’d do in that situation” or “people get scared and they freeze” or bibbety bobbety WHATEVER. I must call a certain degree of bullshit.
Yes, there is such a thing as “bystander syndrome” and I know all about it, and yes, people get scared and they don’t know what to do sometimes.
What I think Rachel overlooks is the way people are unionized, for lack of a better term. Not only are most people inexperienced to take action, they have been successfully taught by supervisors and union workers and lawyers and government agencies - it is wrong, or illegal, or suspect, or a combination of the three, if you try to do something that is someone else’s job. People stand around because they have been taught that standing around is what is expected - they might get in the road of a ‘professional’ or union worker.
So the next time you frown at someone, or discourage someone from stepping outside their niche of assigned tasks, consider that you might be the one bleeding on the road next time. Take a good look at what the strict role aversion your union practices means to your family if they get hurt. You can’t say, “Mind your own business” and hope for someone to help, only because they happen to be there.
We trained those people, at great effort and legal expense, to stand and look on.