Are we raising monsters or what? 

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/27/BAEA1AB71L.DTL

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where is the respect for life?

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"RICHMOND, Calif. – The gang rape and beating of a 15-year-old girl on school grounds after her homecoming dance was horrific enough. But even more shocking, police say, was that up to two dozen people watched and did nothing to stop it." ______________ This was from one article I read about this plus the TV news said the rape went on for two and a half hours. This was after a dance but I watched another show focusing on teen sex and they told how the kids would gather around a couple and they would have sex right on the dance floor. We sure let our society go down the drain.

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The erosion of the value of sex and the de-empathizing power of our entertainment-focused culture play big roles.  But the lack of action by witnesses is nothing new and appears to be human nature.  The more witesses there are, the odds of any of them acting to stop an assault actually decreases.  It's a weird social quirk, but once you are aware of it you can overcome it.  I'm reading The Tipping Point by Malcom Gladwell, and among many things, he's discussing this.  there's lots of psychological data on this that started after the 1960s murder of NYC woman Kitty Genovese, which was witnessed by over 30 people, none of whom called police as she screamed for help in an alley.

So while we may be raising monsters to some degree, at least that part of this scene is a monstrosity common to all of us.

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In another discussion the topic was about hate crimes for gays being attached to $680 billion defense budget. Out of the over 700 members in this group I took it that individual rights were of the upmost importance. The strange thing about my reasoning is I seen over 700 members in this group in the same category as those that stood around watching this 15 year old get raped for 2 1/2 hours. Society is getting raped with the defense budget and it simply didn't matter cause rights were more important. I mean if this girl would've been gay this would've been a hate crime. Even the California law was against her. She was 15 and California law only can prosecute by-standers for not doing anything to stop the rape for those 14 and under. As I stated before I am totally against the promotion of individual rights because this is an example of neglecting doing what's best for the whole of society. My God what the hell is wrong with us in this country. The guy that kidnapped the 11 year old, held her for 18 years and fathered two children with her went on trial today. There was a young girl in Utah kidnapped at knife point right out of her own bedroom and repeatedly raped for nine months she was held, only to now find the guy was incompetent to stand trail. The psychology of this boils down to getting our own heads screwed on straight instead of these stupid wars in other countries where we act like we know better than anybody how life is suppose to be lived.

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*facepalm*

Ken...  I don't think that it was an issue of which was more important.  Yes, the amount of money we are wasting on war and the MIC is a huge problem, but it wasn't the topic.  Both parties use nonnegotiable bills as ways to sneak in controversial elements of their agenda.  The GOP attached guns in national parks to the stimulus bill; the Dems attached hate crimes to defense.  While it does suck that this seemed the only way to get the job done, progress was made, and reducing the defense budget will be a much longer and politically bloodier struggle.

Few here are playing the inactive witness to our big problems, but you come off as insensitive when you don't acknowledge the value of what was accomplished, even if it wasn't the first priority to you.  To the LGBT community, it was a pretty big deal.  Maybe walk a mile in their issues before continuing this threadjack-flavored line of conversation.

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of people who observe a crime but fail to take correct action ...

Neil Smelser, a professor emeritus of sociology at UC Berkeley, said crowds in such situations often can be broken into four categories: those who perpetrate the action; those who actively encourage it but don't participate; those who observe without supporting or speaking out against the action; and those who object to it and may or may not vocalize that to the rest of the group.

"They may think, 'Why do I need to get involved in this if it doesn't involve me?' Maybe they're stunned, maybe it's denial, or fear," Smelser said. "You don't necessarily want to blame these people in not getting involved and calling police. You often have to avoid simple judgments and look at all the circumstances. It's the kind of scene that encourages a helpless feeling."

I'm disgusted that someone in that crowd of people didn't take action for 2-1/2 hours.  I try to think back (granted it was a long time ago) to when I was an adolescent and the way my brain worked and imagine what I would've done had I been in a similar situation. 

I would like to think that I would not have just stood there and done nothing. 

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This is totally fear based and the record spending defense budget only got distracted by the hate crime part being added to it. It's a human behavior issue where government controls and manipulates to benefit those that bought the US government. They do things for their profit and not the whole society. 

All understanding these issues would take is asking oneself some simple questions. For instance with stupid wars, if we win somebody has to lose so what will our country do with all those we make losers out of? If we win, what will we win and how and who will that benefit? I could go on and on with simple logic like this but I see our society as to far gone to make sense too. Even with the fear promotion, wouldn't it be better to individually ask if people like living in fear or if it could be better facing up to the fears that control and manipulate us? I especially see this when going deeper in debt for wars when our own people are hurting big time and nobody shows any concern for stuff like that. Our society focuses on issues presented to them as problems instead of having as much as a little inkling of what's right for our whole society. That to me sucks. 

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This topic has nothing whatsoever to do with defense spending.  Nada. 

Please be considerate of other people and start your own thread to talk about whatever it is that you want to talk about.  That would be ever so cool. 

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spoke to something like this before.  I am quite sure that someone on that crowd wanted to do something to stop it, but did not because of many of reasons.  It only takes a few people, to ignite others to do what is the right thing, and other will follow.

Then again, we could also have some over zealous people, and taking action could become extreme in certain cases...

Balance...

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would've been as simple as leaving and calling the police. 

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considering some took videos of this with their cell phones.

But not enough....  A lot of damage can take place until they arrive...

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But as it is, this went on for 2-1/2 hours. 

If someone had had the balls to do something, it could've been stopped much sooner than it was. 

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that many are afraid that something will happen to them or theirs when they take action.  Like they will be jumped later on, or even worse....

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is rife with gangs and just violence in general ...

Still ... you can get killed just driving in your car ... a LOT of people have been shot just riding through town around there ...

I read today that the young boys who were arraigned today wore bullet-proof vests to court. 

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but if more people in the communities got involved, maybe neighborhoods such as that one, would be safer?

Sure, there will be a cost, at first

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but there's only so much that can be done when the violence has been escalating over the years and everyone just "gets used to it."

I read that the community ... the high school kids, in particular ... are upset because of what the rest of the nation thinks of Richmond High School ... and Richmond in general. 

My cousin and auntie live in Richmond.  The part that butts up against Berkeley ... relatively safe ... but I wouldn't go walking in the neighborhood by myself at night. 

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So...actually, somebody did help, and they did that as soon as they knew what was going on.  What can you say about the ones who perpetrated it or stood around watching, maybe waiting their turn?

Nothing good, that's for sure.

I would like to think I'd intervene if I witnessed or knew about something like this.  Truth is, I probably wouldn't be in the right place at the right time to even know about it, not around here.

We just had a horrible killing here in Topeka, where a number of young people decided to have a big fight in one of the little parks around town, and a 34-year-old woman who lived in the neighborhood was shot and killed by some kid waving his gun around firing it randomly.  People who know the woman who was killed say she was a volunteer "community activist" who had tried to keep kids in her neighborhood out of trouble, out of the gangs, doing something positive.  It would have been sad no matter who she was, but that makes it doubly sad to me.

Some time ago I lived in the neighborhood where this happened, only a few blocks away...

Victim Tries to Stop Melee

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The psychology of group behavior is really interesting stuff.  One reason this is shocking is that we so rarely act as groups; we act as individuals and/or couples the vast majority of the time.  Maybe some office meeting be havior verges on group activity, or sporting events, but this is really not normal in our socieity anymore.  So when our behavior changes, we're unprepared; we don't know how to act.

One thing I learned about this that seems so important is that it takes just one person to step up and take charge, and that person must immediately deputize other people to assist.  Now, when a crime is in progress, and ther's fear of physical retribution, it can change, but the idea is to overcome the paralysis that can set up in people witnessing something terrible to which they are unprepared to respond.  If you are the one taking charge, you must look at someone directly in the eye, point to him/her, and say, "You: help me/do this/call the police" etc.  That act snaps the person out of group paralysis and reinforces their individuality, in which state they are more inclined to act.

The other thing is to have a neighborhood watch or "good gang" in your community; a group which has met at least once and discussed what people are to do if they see a crime or have an emergency.  This might be a good idea for schools too, altho with kids it must be done differently.

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He did do what any "normal" person would've done right away, but he was removed from the situation ... he wasn't there, he heard about it and then went to his girlfriend's house, which was nearby, to call. 

Not to take away from the guy ... but his involvement was different ...

I would guess that a jury situation is similar in a way - especially when it comes to deciding on a death sentence.  I was reading about the two jurors who took a standa against the death penalty on the mass murder trial of James Degorski ...

That had to be tough, given the scope of those murders. 

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The psychology is that we're a society so it is society's mentality that must be dealt with and yes Uno the defense budget-has a lot to do with this even if you can not understand that. The hate crime bill was only a diversion to draw the attention away from the record high defense budget which absolutely nobody expressed any opinion about. Society's mentality is tabloid oriented making it impossible to sincerely find decent solutions in changing the direction to avoid things like this brutal rape from happening again. While those that committed the rape get punished it doesn't change society make up of irresponsible and unaccountable people that enable leaders to be rewarded with profits gained with the record breaking defense budget. It does fit in with this issue because we all enabled government to neglect offering our citizens any security yet were blind to their corruption. Our cities and states can't even find the money to function to deal with these sort of matters yet society does not object to record breaking budgets for more war.

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has nothing to do with this.  Nada. 

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since I'm too dense to figure out the connection. 

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