Decasia : The State Of Decay - Bill Morrison - 2002 (67min)

The Bystander Apathy

“Studies show that bystanders choose to remain passive in a case such as Kitty’s because they recognize it as, for example, a husband ‘beating up’ his wife– ‘family problems’. Thinking they have no say in it and that it isn’t their problem, bystanders decide to watch instead of helping. Because, as Nietzsche has said, other people’s suffering is strange to us. It is unknown- it is a foreign concept to us.”

According to Nietzsche’s philosophy, a crowd’s morality is life-denying. Reading about this topic made me think about the macabre death of Katherine Genovese. Incredibly close to help yet so far away.

But what causes this “Bystander Effect”?

Decades prior to the bystander apathy theory being created, Nietzsche had heavily critiqued ‘the morality of the crowd’ and our human values. Talking about topics such as activism, altruism and volunteerism and pointing out the fact that people were becoming more individualistic and less giving. Everything in our lives affects this. Whether that is the way our parents educate us, what we are taught at school and what ideals we learn about during our early years in life.

The Bystander Effect, otherwise known as The Bystander Apathy is a phenomenon where a bystander is less likely to offer help to a victim if there are other people around, or if otherwise, they are in a crowd. Boiling it down to a few points, the reason why this happens is because people will start avoiding responsibility or they will try to act as everyone else around them. Otherwise, their behavior completely changes from the latter when they’re put in an uncomfortable position as to not seem ‘rude’. The bystander’s behavior also changes depending on if a person is alone or with somebody.

The theory was spawned during the ‘60s after Kitty’s death. A woman getting no help while a killer attacks her even though 38 bystanders were there. So why did none of them intervene? Why did they let her die in such a manner when all of them together were able to fend off the offender?

Studies show that bystanders choose to remain passive in a case such as Kitty’s because they recognize it as, for example, a husband ‘beating up’ his wife– ‘family problems’. Thinking they have no say in it and that it isn’t their problem, bystanders decide to watch instead of helping. Because, as Nietzsche has said, other people’s suffering is strange to us. It is unknown- it is a foreign concept to us.

Canon m50, f5.0 15-45mm

"I realized something. I'm a non-person, Sarah. You shouldn't be here, I'm not here. You may see me, but I'm hollow."

-Adrien Brody as Henry Barthes in Detachment, 2011

“The idea of good and evil has nothing to do with religion or a mystic conscience. It is a natural need of animal races. And when founders of religions, philosophers, and moralists tell us of divine or metaphysical entities, they are only recasting what each ant, each sparrow practices in its little society. Is this useful to society? Then it is good. Is this hurtful? Then it is bad.”

— Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality

"A freedom which is interested only in denying freedom must be denied. And it is not true that the recognition of the freedom of others limits my own freedom: to be free is not to have the power to do anything you like; it is to be able to surpass the given toward an open future; the existence of others as a freedom defines my situation and is even the condition of my own freedom. I am oppressed if I am thrown into prison, but not if I am kept from throwing my neighbor into prison."

-Simone De Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity

This book is trippy

Canon m50, 15-45mm f5.6

Just like me fr

Alternatively, 'merely understanding and ignoring assignments is a form of ecstasy'

'Understanding is a form of ecstasy.' to put it in Carl Sagan's words.

Bye

Dark themed buildings are so yum

Canon m50, 15-45mm f6.0