This is a comment by Rob on the post “Video: Hero Saves Woman From Burning Car“.
“It should also be noted herein; the surrounding gawkers remained true to the new demands of citizenry and humanity. As required, hands were properly wrung. Phone cameras were dutifully held high and well-aimed. Uploads to ‘the cloud’ would have beat the car’s occupant to the heavens.
“The greatest generation had many men who would have ended the crisis as a team. But our highly evolved beer-gut culture has taught all (except the MAN in this story) that they must wait, don’t touch, don’t risk not going home to the universal remote.
“Rather, its now your nature’s demand that you capture, OMG, tweet, upload to YouTube and FB all about it to you BFFs.”
Photo credit: Flickr / mnsc
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I agree it’s terrible that so many watch and few take action in a situation such as this. I disagree this is new, or is related to social media, masculinity not being valued etc.
Most people are paralyzed by crisis, and few are trained to think clearly and take action during a crisis. Note that the man who saved the day here is a Staff Sergeant of the Texas Air National Guard; I think we can assume that he has received crisis training. I’d venture that that’s probably far more significant than the fact that he’s a man.
It’s good that people who work in crisis handling professions (police, fire fighters, etc) and people who go through military service are trained in crisis handling. It would be better if far more people had such training.
Yeah, I kind of don’t think he’s right in calling out MEN in particular. I’m going to give the author the benefit of the doubt by hoping that the sentiment was about PEOPLE being more proactive in general.
Since in psychology there’s a term for this that’s been around a long time (the “bystander effect”), it’s not exactly a new thing, but I do think there’s something to say about how we have the propensity to be gawkers and not doers.
So you’re saying the Real Men have to risk their lives for complete strangers? The people watching have families too, and as Lars says, the person who did take action here had proper training – an ordinary civilian would have got in his way and possibly made the situation worse.
I actually think we all have a moral obligation to make an effort and to accept a reasonable risk in order to help a stranger in grave danger. The problem is that most of us don’t know how to, and probably believe we can’t help.
One aspect that made me bug-eyed was that the fire extinguisher came from one of the toll-booths. Then I remembered that these fiery crashes are not only more-than-occasional, but highly predictable. Predictors in-place and requisite fire-extinguisher at the ready, the crisis was missing trained toll attendants.
I kinda wanna puke a little when I think someone had to toss the Staff Sergeant the toll-plaza’s extinguisher to get the job done.
As for inaction: ‘Some’ action is nearly always better than complete ‘inaction.’ I would never be able to sleep another peaceful night if all I did was watch the driver burn to death.
I also don’t see anyone with a beating heart as a “total stranger.” I’m not just saying that to counter. All you need to do to “know” them, is to wave, shake hands, share air, break their window open, refuse to let them burn without a try.
Reginald Denny was beaten to near death by Rodney King’s LA Rioters. The assault and attempted murder was witnessed by many bystanders. Only one stepped forward and chased the wolves off without so much as a pocket knife in hand. I do personally know a guy who had not one rescuer on earth. It can’t happen again.
And let it be known that one of the men who stopped the beating of Denney was a black men. For some reason I hear the story told in reverse.