Humanity is lost
We’ve probably all heard about the 16-year old girl in Steubenville, OH who was not only raped repeatedly, but dragged from party to party while unconscious. And the young lady in India who was raped repeatedly on a bus and thrown out of the bus along with her companion who was also beaten. Here in Kansas City, we had a case last year in Westport where a young man was punched and fell against a curb, unconscious.
What do the three cases have in common? Although each incident occured in front of multiple people with cell phones, no one called for help. And even more disgustingly, people did videos of the victims — as though it was all part of a play.
Have we become so accustomed to violence that we view all violence as a TV program? It seems that, with cell phones according instant access to police and/or medical aid, it would be a given that someone would call for help. But, no. They’d rather video the victim(s) in pain, possibly in hopes of selling the video to the highest bidder.
I am appalled at the lack of humanity exhibited today. It’s no wonder we have mass killings such as Aurora, CO and Newtown, CT. People don’t view other people as human anymore. They’re just objects in the vast video game that so many people seem to live in anymore.
I weep for our lost humanity.
JR Beillenhouser
4 months, 1 week agoI thought you said it was because of guns?
When life is not viewed as something sacred, this tends to occur. Welcome to the America you helped to create.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoWell Suzanne,
It seems pretty simple to me, but not being a smart lib, who knows.
You remove the expectations of being responsible for your actions and give people excuses for their behavior. You remove the mere mention of God from our schools. You allow and support a Hollywood producing violence and depravity. You install an entitlement society that does not demand people PRODUCE, merely exist.
And then we have a column bemoaning the effects of all this LIB BS…. once again, an example of people not accepting responsibility for their actions, i.e. libs!
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoGeorge and JR. I’m sorry, but your rants against liberals have nothing to do with the issue.
I remember, back in the 50s or 60s, well before all these horrible ‘liberal’ things George is railing against, a young woman in New York was being stabbed to death and none of the people who heard her called the police.
George, what does ‘people not accepting responsibility for their actions’ have to do with people ignoring victims of other peoples’ actions?
And, as you possibly overlooked, one of the incidences I mentioned happened in India. I don’t think the Indian government has fallen into the liberal entity that you men are screaming about.
I’d hate to be in a victim situation in front of you guys. Instead of calling for help, you’d probably whip out signs saying, “The Liberals Did It”.
Matt Henry
4 months, 1 week agoYou are correct to point out that the world was plenty inhumane before liberals went to work stripping us of our individual responsibilities, but you contradict your own piece when you bring up the Kitty Genovese case, the famous incident to which I assume you refer. How is the state of humanity worse now than in this 50 year old incident to which you refer?
Man’s inhumanity to man is not a new phenomenon. Stanley Milgram’s studies in the 60’s showed staggeringly common “inhumane” treatment of others. Psychologists were interviewed before these studies and consistently suggested that only the tiniest percentages, only those considered diagnose-ably anti-social, would go forward with the shocks that made the studies famous. Imagine all the lamentations over the state of humanity after the results of those studies came out 50 years ago, like they wouldn’t have happened 100 years before.
It is naive to think people won’t find ways to hurt each other. It is naive to think that people haven’t ALWAYS lost their sense of responsibility to a crowd. And it is WAY naive to think that more laws and more restrictions will make people more humane. To suggest that somehow humanity is less “human” now than at any time in history is incredibly naive but sounds great to those whose sense of history ends with the Clinton administration.
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoMatt, I’ve been thinking about the Kitty Genovese case and realized that this issue goes way further back than I’d realized.
After all, didn’t two people pass the wounded man on the road before the Good Samaritan took care of him?
And again, Matt, this isn’t a liberal against conservative issue. It’s a human issue. And there aren’t many laws to cover the problem.
However, a friend of mine pointed out that when the young woman was gang-raped on a pool table a few years ago while people just stood around and watched, the watchers were charged with abetting a crime. That’s a small glimmer of hope.
Although, thinking back on all the cases of people ignoring a crime, I’m beginning to wonder if humanity is really humane.
JR Beillenhouser
4 months, 1 week ago“I’d hate to be in a victim situation in front of you guys. Instead of calling for help, you’d probably whip out signs saying, “The Liberals Did It”.”
Logical Fallacy.
Perhaps you should look this up, as Matt notes, you tend to do this a lot.
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoGuys, why do you conservatives lash out at liberals when the topic is totally apolitical?
JR. That statement was not Logical Fallacy. It was meant as humor. Apparently, along with jumping to the ‘liberals did it’ mentality, you have no sense of humor as well.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoBecause it is political Suzanne… You liberals have packed our courts with politicall correct judges who have no qualms about rewriting the Constitution. You have hamstrung schools in terms of disciplining and expelling people. Johnny and Jane today get a pass for their behavior because of “make-up the excuse you want”…
This breakdown of society I lay directly at your feet. Then, to write a column about it is just hypocritcal to me…..
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoAnd BTW, if I saw you being victimized, I would not idly standby. I would probably shoot the criminal!!! That is until you disarm me…..
Steve Alleman
Kansas City
4 months, 1 week agoYou must understand, Suzanne, conservatives are ALWAYS the victims, even and especially when they’re accusing other people of playing the ‘victim card.’ Liberals are all-powerful monsters who have put conservatives into a corner where they imagine themselves to be the only defenders of civilization. It’s a sick inferiority/superiority complex, pathetic but occasionally hilarious.
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoGood lib steve… now return to your corner….
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoGeorge, It is NOT political. As Ipointed out earlier, even Jesus mentioned people who would walk by a wounded person without stopping.
I mentioned a case in India. That has nothing to do with liberal US judges.
George, this is about humanity as a whole, since the beginning of time, apparently.
And George, victims are not always the victims of someone for you to shoot. I could be lying bloody in the street because I’d fallen or had a heart attack or had a diabetic coma.
The whole question is why do people ignore people who need help?
George Hunsucker
Northland
4 months, 1 week agoread the post Suzanne….
“If you were being victimized”, not if you had fallen a scrapped your knee…. geez…..
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoI’m not talking about scraping a knee. And I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase ‘victim of a heart attack’.
I’ve seen people who’ve fallen face first who look pretty darn bloody and beaten.
Geez, George, why do you have to argue EVERYTHING???
Matt Henry
4 months, 1 week agoThis is psychology 101, really. We overestimate the importance of the individual in determining why people do things and underestimate the situational information. This is such a clearly defined and well documented phenomenon that it has its own name in the psychology lexicon, the Fundamental Attribution Error.
The studies are all very clear. You may think you know how you would act were a mob attacking a woman on your bus, but the truth is that the situation dictates a lot towards your behavior. Are you so sure you would fly headlong into a group of thigs to save a victim? Or catch it on video and have one of them see you do it, risking their hostility directed at you? Don’t be so sure….
Diffusion of responsibility, groupthink…. All phenomena that have been around forever and are not going anywhere. Again, for a fun ride about the nature of ‘inner man’ check out the Stanley Milgram coercion studies.
This is all very old, very well known stuff. To wring our hands over the status of humanity ignores history and makes us look ignorant.
Suzanne Conaway
4 months, 1 week agoMatt, As I noted before the ‘ignorance is bliss’ syndrome (I made that name up) even goes back to the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I guess I’m just disappointed that humans are sometimes so inhumane.