Why are You Looking Away?

The sweltering heat stings my skin, searing my eyes as I stride through the claustrophobic commotion of Java Road. I keep my head down, avoiding any unwanted attention as I block out the loud honking of the cars and the yelling of the shopkeepers which were no more than a distant shrilling in my ear. Effortlessly maneuvering my way into waves of people with a string of incoherent ‘excuse me’s and ‘sorry’s poised at the tip of my tongue, I walk briskly, the scorching ground burning under my feet. With beads of sweat dripping down his face, a man, no older than 60, approached me, holding forth a glass box with a sloppily written “50 CENTS TO SAVE A CHILD”. Inside the box resided a few dollar notes carelessly jumbled up, the flimsy grass-coloured paper winking in the sunlight.

“Would you like to make a donation?” 50 cents - a measly 50 cents. Yet I was quick, too quick to shoo them off and went on my way. It was almost instinctive, a habit many people have acquired over the years. As I pace on, and my heels clack on the pavement, I glance back to see him approaching a group of tourists.

‘They can help’, I tell myself. ‘Not me. Why donate 50 cents to save a child’s life when someone else will donate 100 dollars to save 200 children?’

As insensitive as my comments were, they are not unheard of. Who among us has actually taken significant action in response to society’s call for help? We often are told to turn our electricity off to stand up against global warming, and to that we respond, “Not today; one person wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway”. It isn't that we don’t care - on the contrary, many of us feel empathy for the poor souls begging on the street.

So why do we look away?

As human beings, we narrate our lives into a story we like to believe - a story we tell ourselves that relieves us of responsibility to act and to define our inaction - is what underlies the diffusion of responsibility. Diffusion of responsibility is not a thing to take lightly. In fact, the most repugnant, barbarous disgrace of humanity, also known as ‘the Holocaust’ gave evidence supporting the sociopsychological phenomenon of the “diffusion of responsibility”.

Diffusion of responsibility is where a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when others are present; considered a form of attribution, it is assumed that others are either responsible for taking action or have already done so. The knowledge that plenty of other people could have witnessed the accident, received the same email, or heard the same orders from an authority figure enables us to ease our guilt and reassure ourselves of the indifference and apathetic attitudes in our behaviour towards society. This may explain why some perpetrators, such as the Nazi officers tried at Nuremberg, felt guiltless when they ascribed the responsibility for their actions to "orders". “We were just following orders”, they had said.

A murder case that is horrific, and unfortunately true, was the case of Kitty Genovese. On 13th of March 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered outside her apartment. This was a tragedy in the making - however, this was not the horrific part. The most horrific part of the case was despite her terror-filled screams for help, not one of the 38 witnesses had intervened, nor called the police. One of these 38 witnesses had the power to prevent Kitty Genovese's murder, yet they stayed in their comfortable little homes, content to stand by and let tragedy strike. It was a dark day for everyone, especially for the 38 witnesses who had cruelly ignored the cries for help.

Do we face a common challenge today? Of course; global warming, ageing population, terrorism, racism, the increasing wealth gap. These are all challenges that all of us have to rectify and overcome. It is not a job for only one person. However, we are the authors of our own stories, and our choices and actions not only affect us, but other people as well- when help is requested, we ignore it; when something is offered, we refuse it. The more we practice turning a blind eye on someone else’s plights and predicaments, the easier it becomes for us to reject responsibility and divide obstacles between ours and theirs. This goes against the principles of the doctrine of interdependent origination - which refers to the philosophical perspective of human interconnectedness and dependence on other members of society. We get so accustomed to the basic luxuries that we enjoy in everyday life that we forget how many centuries of resources and intertwined mutual understanding between harmonious interactions it has taken for us to be able to live the life we do today. Realising our true interconnectedness means more than merely acknowledging that our pleasure is created at the expense of others - it means being able to empathise with one another and to imagine ourselves their positions, and comprehend the arduous work that they endure.

So the next time you cut someone off in traffic, have the uncontrollable urge to snap at someone, or cross a homeless man sitting at the edge of the sidewalk, envisage yourself in their shoes and ask what you would want yourself to do. Remember that our perception of ourselves is merely an illusion, and more often than not, our judgement is manipulated through the hued distortion of our emotions. Wield the power you attain for good, and maybe, you will be the one to prevent a tragedy.