Alfred Tate-Yax's Involvement In The US

Some may say that bystanders are terrible and have no sense of morality and yes, that may true for some bystanders. The case of Kitty Genovese truly shows how cruel and unthoughtful bystanders can be, but when we ask the question of why people would ignore someone in a crisis such as that, we automatically make up rationalizations such as diffusion of responsibility but in reality that's not the case. The idea of this new law is fantastic, absolutely. In reality, this law is unrealistic in what its asking of us. Bystanders don't stand by and watch someone in a crisis because of diffusion of responsibility, they stand by because they see people walk by someone in a crisis and think it’d be weird of him to go out of his way to help someone since

According to Startwell, author of “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror”, humans have the “desire for our own security and that of our family and friends to the extent we are willing to make moral compromises to preserve it.” This is a common motive of many people and helps us understand why we feel inclined to follow our authoritative figures despite some of the extreme measures. Our flight or fight response is our internal motivation to do anything to survive. It is triggered when we feel we are in life threatening situations. This natural instinct of ours explain why our judgement is frequently off in these types of situations causing us to make rash decisions. In addition, Lessing, author of “Group Minds”, highlights that we prefer to not be singled out in a crowd since we are afraid of the negative consequences. It does seem easier to listen to the rules instead of having to go against them. If we would try to defy the authority, it is highly possible that we would be isolated from the crowd. The others, typically, lean more towards taking the authoritative figure’s side since they are afraid of what the consequences would be if they were to also try to rebel. Standing out from the crowd is very uncomfortable since there is an unknown certainty if anyone else will join; therefore, we have the tendency to not attempt it. In general, people

Kitty Genovese was a woman from New York City who was stabbed to death three separate times outside her apartment building in Kew Gardens. The first two times being outside her apartment, and finally finishing her off the assailant returned stabbing her on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Much controversy arose from the Kitty Genovese murder, due to how public the murder was, and how no one stood up for her, or even alerted the police. After Kitty Genovese’s murder, questions began to arise, why didn't anyone take action, how was the assailant able to stab her three times in public, and why weren't the police or ambulances called sooner? All these questions could be answered by a syndrome, titled after the Kitty Genovese murder, as the “Bystander Effect”.

   There are certain social codes that we are expected to follow. They are too numerous and obscure to know-but for the most part, they don't need to be known. The unspoken, unwritten set of rules we are obligated to live by are subtly imbued in us from birth. When we live outside those boundaries and follow our own desires, we are walking on thin ice. An eccentric choice in wardrobe or unusual habits can make the difference between being considered an individual who "thinks outside of the box," or just a plain old lunatic. When someone refuses to adhere to our social codes, they become suspect. But what drives them, enables them to refuse in the first place?

According to Lauren Slater, “the larger group, the more emboldened you would become, the less fearful, the more likely you would be to reach out across danger” (101). In contrast, she also mentioned that “[the] more people witnessing an event, the less responsible any one individual feels and, indeed, is, because responsibility is evenly distributed among the crowd” (102). These ideas look like conflicting with each other: one is getting confidence and the other is losing identity in a large group. Why each person takes such an action in a group?

The events leading to the 38 people who didn’t report a murder was horrifying. 38 cold-blooded bystanders didn’t intervene or report the stabbings watched as Catherine Genovese was stabbed 3 times and found dead. A community like this should be more involved in taking action when observing violent or life threatening combats between other people. Martin Gansberg’s, the author, purpose of writing this essay is to persuade readers in order to make changes in our society’s mindset on public safety. His proposed readers were towards anyone in general, especially to those who may witness violent quarrels between other people. This story spooked me because citizens in a community are supposed to back each other up in times of need. Because this is a true story this makes me have doubt of the people in my community, if anything happened to me. I strongly believe in times like this, a community must take some sort of action when they see a bystander in a deadly

Because of this we blend in with other bystanders who may just pass by. On the 13th of March 1964 at 3am in Kew Gardens, Queens, 28 year old Catherine “Kitty” Genovese was brutally stabbed and raped before being left to bleed out near here apartment while 38 people watched and did nothing. An example of altruistic

This tragic death was seen as a failure of modern neighbourhoods and local community to achieve due-care of neighbours. Latané and Darley focused on this ‘apathy’ and unresponsiveness of neighbours and asked the question, when faced with an emergency, “What determines when help will be given? Latané and Darley (1970) cited in Byford (2014, p. 228). Latané and Darley researched this question with a series of Experiments used to explain the non-intervention of bystanders in the Kitty Genovese murder. The main controlled experiment was known as ‘Lady in distress’. The test was to simulate an emergency situation such as an accident at work in front of participants who agreed to the study. Latané, Darley and Rodin, then systematically varied and manipulated the experimental situation to see the effects of readiness of bystanders to help. It can be seen in this experiment that 70% of participants intervened to help the ‘victim’ when in the alone response. Whilst only 40% intervened in the ‘Two strangers condition’. Most extraordinarily the ‘Passive confederate condition’ showed only 7% would intervene in the presence of an unknown bystander Figure 6.5 cited in (Byford, 2014, p. 231). When a person sees an emergency alone, they are ten times more likely to help then if with company or an unknown bystander. This shows that people believe in a diffusion of responsibility and are less obliged to help, creating the ‘bystander

Most people tend to just “follow the crowd” and go along with whatever everyone else is doing. People tend to go along with what other people are doing because they’re afraid of being different and that they might be judged too. The book To Kill a Mockingbird shows this very well. In the book no one in the town of Maycomb knew Tom personally except the lawyer defending him. The only person who liked Tom was the only person who got to know him. Everyone in the town would hear about how bad of a person he was and all the bad things he has done and with every person that would find hear something, the story of what really happened would get even more and more exaggerated. It influences people’s decisions of what things are like so they can never find out by themselves.

In addition, people can be convicted falsely, and could go to jail where actual criminals should go instead of innocent people that were there at the wrong time when a crime has occurred. On the other hand, if the law is adopted, many citizens could be saved when an accident occurs instead of letting the person die. My own view is that this law could change humanity and enforcing this law, real criminals will end behind bars. You think that this could be silly law, but it is not. What if that was you who is in danger? put yourself in that position.

I believe the law should pass but with some altercations with the punishments and they should specify the age requirements and specify what is someone in distress. I believe that the fines are too high for people to pay. They should probably lower the punishments because what if you are working two jobs and barely can support for your family then how is he going to pay 5,000 dollars. Where is the fine money going to? In the law proposal

“To what extent should we take care of others and to what extent should others take care of themselves.” A question we ask ourselves and each other almost every day as we are challenged with many ethical questions and situation that provoke the public opinion of how much is too much, and how much is not enough. The topic at hand is very delicate, for we’re about to discuss a very profound subject that might as well keep us up at night attempting to make sense of it. Questioning our ethics as human beings who should be doing everything we can to help those in need is the first step. And while we do so it is also imperative to outline and recognize what doing “everything we can” entails and when “everything” reaches its absolute limit.

When people break established rules in their community, others around them would have negative judgment on them. In the movie, Witness, directed by Peter Weir, James McFee and Paul Schaeffer remove detective John Book from their group because he is violating their actions, which is killing a man in the public restroom. In the article “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do: Separation of Society and State” by Peter McWilliams, individuals in the society do not care much about those who are not following the laws that government has made. However, if group members do not follow the society’s rules, societies do not need those people, judge them differently, and punish them on their own ways, based on the levels of violation. In the article “Freedom of Expression,” Emily West describes the penalty of violating expressive boundaries of the community as serious as social ostracism. Furthermore, friends can be considered as strangers if they break their rules and act differently. Based on the movie Witness, the articles “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do: Separation of Society and State” and “Freedom of Expression,” and my personal observation, there are three risks in committing actions that break social norms: social exclusion, losing respect and being considered as stranger

Have we become a nation of uncaring and selfish people or are our actions just misunderstood? Barbara E Reid is a professor of New Testament studies and she wrote an article about the kindness of strangers for the periodical America Press. In the first paragraph the article explains some of the reasons we may not stop to help a stranger. “There are all kinds of good reasons for not stopping to help a stranger: I have other pressing obligations. It’s dangerous—what if the robbers are still lurking and attack me? I don’t have any professional skills or resources to help this person. If I move him and make his injuries worse he might sue me. And on and on.” (Reid, par. 1). We need to understand the complexities involved with human

Conformity is key to survival. Throughout history people have conformed to the people around them, allowing them to survive. If someone is doing something to get food and shelter, you aren’t going to do the exact opposite. “Safety in numbers”, we’ve all heard of it. Being in a group or herd has been vital to the uprising of civilization. If every person was a lone wolf, the concept of civilization and cities wouldn’t have been established. Let’s go back to the dawn of man. Groups of people hunted down big game in packs. One lone man couldn’t take down