Sunday, April 25, 2010

Indifference

I was going to write a post this morning marveling at the indifference people have to music, particularly music that demands attention, when it is played in an outdoor setting, but this article about people in New York (in Queens) being indifferent to seeing a man on the sidewalk who had been stabbed and was lying in a pool of blood, puts things into perspective.

What kind of people have we become? Are we so desensitized by images of violence on television that we cannot take a minute to try to do what we can to help someone--even if it is only to take out a cell phone and call the police? This is inhuman, and I am deeply ashamed to be part of a culture that allows this kind of inhumanity.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Kitty Genovese was a name from long ago in NYC, just one along with names like Neda from the Green Revolution trying to start in Iran only in the last months. Apathetic and morally-empty bystanders have been a part of the human culture since time immemorial, but so have the good samaritans. In every nation and every era, there have been both. There seems no answer to the conumdrum that human nature is as it is. But in a world where life is debated without clarity or agrrement, from conception and abortion to death and capital punishment, without much progress, the cry of "stop the world, I want to get off" doesn't seem to answer things. Perhaps it comes down simply to each individual, and not the culture at all? I have stopped for someone on occasion, so perhaps it is just an individual thing, and culture and society mean squat?