We've watched the Human Behavior Experiment documentary in small groups about a week ago. The documentary itself was very interesting to me, but one idea stood out most of all to me while watching the documentary; What makes a hero?
What I mean by this question is, what circumstances cause a person to act in a manner where they stand up against things they think are immoral. What causes a person to break from the bystander effect and become a "hero"? Murder is one of the few crimes that nearly every human agrees is immoral, yet, in the Kitty Genovese murder, very few people did anything to stop it. Just a couple weeks ago, the Las Vegas shootings occurred, which killed 59 people and injured 546 more, yet we only got a couple stories of the "heroes".
We can hypothesize all we want about why people are super susceptible to the bystander effect, but the simple fact is that we've pretty much all fallen victim to it, and if something like Las Vegas or Kitty happens near us, having heroes can mean the difference between a life lost and a life saved. So let's ask ourselves, "what makes a hero"? What can we do to create more heroes? What can we do to become heroes?
Personally, I believe knowledge is the best way to create more heroes. Spreading awareness of the bystander effect and encouraging people to speak up and rise up against things they think is wrong is effective. Teaching our kids to stand up will be effective. But, I'd like to know your opinions. Are there any other ways to create heroes? Are heroes even needed? I'd like to hear some thoughts.
I agree with you that knowledge is the best way to make people into "heroes" instead of bystanders. And I think this should be talked about even more in school, not only those who take Global should be aware (although I think we might have talked about it in Health?). I think empowering people and giving them a good self-image is the first step. Teach people to be their own heroes and to stand up for themselves and they'll hopefully be able to apply that to others when others most needed it.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely examined the bystander effect in AP Psych as well. However, just because you know that you are prone to stand aside doesn't mean that when there is something you need to stand up for you will stand up for it. I think the problem stems from a societal mindset of selfishness. People only want to look our for themselves. One way we can create more heroes is by paying kindness forward. Small acts of kindness to strangers may encourage them to help out another stranger. I remember on a subway in New York, one guy was on the car asking for money. Everyone was ignoring him but another homeless guy said even though I'm just as worse off as you here's some soap I just picked up at a homeless shelter and some cereal. The homeless guy was a bit reluctant to give up his things but I think because he had recently been treated with kindness and knew what it was like to receive things you were so desperate for, he wanted to help someone else out. Anyway, my point is, small acts of kindness may have a bigger effect than just one person being helped out because they could spread it to someone else.
ReplyDelete