Practical Argument: A Text and Anthology

CHAPTER 19
Under What Circumstances Do Bystanders Have an Ethical Obligation to Intervene?

In 1964, twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death in her New York City neighborhood at 3:30 in the morning. The New York Times reported that thirty-eight of her neighbors heard her screams and did nothing to help, but recent research reveals that this account was overstated and that some of Genovese’s neighbors actually did help—for example, one called out the window for her attacker to stop, two called the police, and another held her while she lay dying. Only two men who saw what happened failed to respond—one fled and the other was drunk. Still, the original, false story reinforced the public’s fears that people could watch someone be murdered and do nothing to help. As a result, the story of Kitty Genovese entered the social consciousness, and we have been using it to ponder our ethical responsibility to help in a crisis ever since.

Some writers, such as Joe Nocera, the author of “It’s Hard to Be a Hero,” say that we have an unqualified obligation to help those in need. They praise individuals who respond in a crisis and condemn those who find reasons not to. Even if the Genovese case is wildly overstated, scenarios like it—with more accurately documented group apathy—occur all the time. Nocera and others examine the “bystander effect,” a psychological phenomenon popularized following Genovese’s murder, which suggests that the larger the number of bystanders, the less likely any one of them is to help in an emergency.

On the other side of the debate, writers like Lenore Skenazy claim that we have taken our collective social guilt about Kitty Genovese too far, and as a result, we intervene when we should simply stand by and watch. This tendency leads to concerned neighbors’ calling authorities whenever they see unaccompanied children walking down the street or playing in a park, whether they are in danger or not. The cost of this overabundant concern is substantial: it is expensive for law enforcement to respond to calls, and reacting to nonexistent problems pulls police away from situations in which they might actually be needed.

As you read the two essays that follow, try to think of ways to address this debate question. For example, how does the widespread ability to take pictures and videos with smartphones affect people’s inclination to step in and help? Which group of bystanders are you most likely to fall into: those who act heroically, those who do nothing or those who panic and flee?

LENORE SKENAZY
HOW KITTY GENOVESE DESTROYED CHILDHOOD

Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death 50 years ago today. She was 28. A tragedy. The press reported 38 onlookers heard her screams and decided not to intervene. That account has since come under fire, but it nonetheless created a perception of ourselves (and certainly New Yorkers) as unconscionably reluctant to get involved.1

We’ve been making up for it ever since—and that’s too bad.2

We may once have been too slow to call the cops (though that’s still disputed), but today we are definitely too fast. Oh, I don’t mean we shouldn’t dial 911 if we see someone being murdered, or threatened, or hurt. Of course we should! In fact, the simple 911 number to call for emergencies was developed partly in response to the Genovese murder: Now everyone could have a quick, easy way to summon the cops anytime, anyplace. A great leap forward.3

The leap sideways, or perhaps downward, came as the general public gradually became convinced that it not only had an obligation to help anyone in danger, it had the obligation to call the cops anytime it noticed people who could be in danger, especially kids, even if they were fine and dandy at the time.4

This has given rise to a near mania for calling the cops when people spot a child on his or her own anywhere in public. And so we have a Connecticut mom charged with “risk of injury to a minor” and failure to appear after police said she allowed her seven- and 11-year-old children to walk to buy pizza unsupervised.5

That’s right. Someone no ticed kids off to get pizza and alerted the cops, as if stopping a potential tragedy.6

Then there’s the dad who was arrested for child endangerment after a woman noticed “two children playing on the swings and slides alone without a guardian” in a suburban Pittsburgh park for two hours. (The charges were later dropped.)7

And let’s not forget the mom in Jonesboro, Arkansas, who made her 10-year-old son walk 4.6 miles to school after he’d been suspended from the school bus for bad behavior. A bank guard saw him walking alone—horrors!—and called the cops. The mom was arrested for child endangerment. In the end, she plead[ed] guilty and was fined $520.8

None of these kids encountered any danger other than a concerned citizen with 911 on speed dial. It has become so unusual to see children outside on their own that a nervous public immediately picks up the phone at such a sight, hyperventilating about danger.9

“‘If in doubt, call 911 to play it safe.’ That’s the lesson that was taken from Kitty Genovese,” says David Pimentel, a professor of law at Ohio Northern University. “But it stems from a faulty assumption, which is that there’s no harm in calling.” But unless the child is in true danger, “There is harm done. The harm that comes from the overreaction of everybody to this.” The courts get involved, CPS gets involved. There are fines, arrests, the threat (and sometimes the reality) of jail time.10

Most of the folks calling the cops—and most of the cops themselves—remember walking to school and playing outside as kids. They are convinced that times have changed and made these activities dicey, even though, nationally, the crime rate is down from what it was in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s. (And that’s not because we don’t let kids go outside anymore. The crime rate against adults is down, too, and we don’t helicopter them.)11

So anyone who walked to the post office or the pizza shop as a kid was no safer than a kid today. But back then, bystanders didn’t dial 911 when they saw kids on their own. They waved.12

Maybe the lesson from the Kitty Genovese era should be this: Let’s get more people back outside, including children. That way we can be looking out for each other, instead of freaking out.13

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©2014. Time Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted/Translated from TIME magazine and published with permission of Time Inc. Reproduction in any manner in any language in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

READING ARGUMENTS

Throughout this article, Skenazy uses the first-person plural (we). How does this usage affect the tone of her argument? How would her argument be different if she wrote entirely in the third-person plural (they)?
What cause-and-effect relationship does Skenazy try to establish in her three opening paragraphs? Do you find this introduction convincing?
Skenazy refers to a “near mania for calling the cops when people spot a child on his or her own anywhere in public” (para. 5). Does she provide enough evidence to support this assertion? Explain.
What specific problem does Skenazy address in this essay, and what is her suggestion for solving this problem? Would it be accurate to call this essay a proposal argument? Why or why not?

JOE NOCERA
IT’S HARD TO BE A HERO

On a crisp January day in 2007, a 50-year-old construction worker named Wesley Autrey became a New York hero when he rescued a man who had fallen onto the subway tracks.1

A train had just left the station, so the platform was nearly empty except for Autrey, his two daughters, and a young man who was having a seizure of some sort. The man fell onto the tracks, in a position, Autrey told me recently, “where he was going to lose his limbs.” With another train fast approaching, Autrey instinctively jumped onto the tracks, positioned the man’s body safely between the rails, and lay on top of him. Five cars passed over them before the train screeched to a halt.2

What prompted me to telephone Autrey was the death on Monday of Ki-Suck Han, a Queens man who was pushed onto the 49th Street subway tracks, allegedly by Naeem Davis, a drifter with whom police said he had been having an altercation. This time, there were plenty of people on the platform, most notably R. Umar Abbasi, a photographer who took some horrifying pictures as the subway train closed in on Han.3

The 22 seconds or so between Han being pushed and the train reaching him was about the same amount of time that Autrey had nearly six years earlier. Yet, on Monday, no one on the crowded platform made a move to help Han until it was too late. (A doctor tried to administer C.P.R., but he was already dead.)4

“People were just standing in fear and shock, not really knowing what was going on,” one bystander told a crowd of reporters. “Some people started running out of the platform. Other people just stood there.”5

When one of Abbasi’s gruesome photographs landed on the front page of the New York Post, the reaction was fierce. “Someone’s taking that picture,” said Al Roker on NBC’s Today Show. “Why aren’t they helping this guy up?”6

Abbasi defended himself in part by saying he used his flash to warn the conductor, but he was also quick to point the finger at others: “Why didn’t the people who were close enough help him?” he asked. “If I had reached him in time, I would have pulled him up,” he insisted. We all harbor the hope that if we found ourselves in the same position as Wesley Autrey—or Umar Abbasi—we would act with courage instead of cowardice.7

Yet behavioral science suggests otherwise. The most famous case of bystanders failing to act took place in 1964, when Kitty Genovese, a young woman living in a quiet Queens neighborhood, was brutally stabbed to death. Despite her repeated screams for help, some 38 people who heard her from their apartments did nothing—not even call the police.8

A. M. Rosenthal, the renowned former executive editor of the Times, who was then the metropolitan editor—and who had gotten the tip that led to the story—wrote a short book called Thirty-Eight Witnesses. In it, Rosenthal asked the question that haunted the country in the aftermath of the murder: Why?9

Why didn’t anyone do anything?10

Rosenthal could only guess at the answer because there had been no research on what is now known as “pro-social behavior.” But after the story gripped the country, two young social scientists—Bibb Latané, then at Columbia University, and John Darley, who taught at New York University—conducted a series of experiments on the behavior of bystanders.11

Their startling conclusion, which is now known as the bystander effect, is that the more people who witness a crime, the less likely any one of them will come to the aid of the victim. Partly this is because when people see others not doing anything, they become confused, not sure if it really is an emergency—“a collective ignorance,” says Latané. Another reason, though, is something called the diffusion of responsibility. “You think to yourself, there are all these other people here. This isn’t entirely my problem,” says Latané.12

Go back to the beginning of this column. The crucial detail in 2007, when viewed through the prism of behavioral science, is that the subway platform was nearly empty. Autrey acted heroically—even leaving his two young children unattended to do so—because there was no one else who could help. On Monday, the 49th Street subway platform was full of people, each possibly thinking that someone else was closer, someone else was stronger, someone else should be responsible for the heroic act. As a result, no one acted.13

“I wouldn’t do the wrong thing,” one man waiting for a subway train told the Times on Tuesday. That’s what we all want to think. It’s why we are so quick to condemn those who do nothing at such moments.14

But let’s be honest: We don’t really know how we’d act until the moment is upon us. Sadly, the science says we’re more likely to do nothing than respond like Wesley Autrey.15

READING ARGUMENTS

What prompted Nocera to write his essay? What question (or questions) did he want to answer?
According to Nocera, what is the “bystander effect”? What is the “diffusion of responsibility” (para. 12)?
What “crucial detail” (13) reveals the difference between Wesley Autrey’s behavior and the behavior of those who failed to help Ki-Suck Han? How does this detail help explain Autrey’s actions?
Nocera quotes a subway passenger who says, “I wouldn’t do the wrong thing” (14). Is Nocera making an ethical argument here? If not, should he be doing so?
How would you describe Nocera’s tone? Judgmental? Pedantic? Sarcastic? Neutral? Something else? Explain your answer.

AT ISSUE: UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DO BYSTANDERS HAVE AN ETHICAL OBLIGATION TO INTERVENE?

Both Skenazy and Nocera mention the case of Kitty Genovese, but they use it to make different points. Explain how each writer interprets the story’s significance and how each writer uses it to support his or her argument. Which writer uses the story more effectively? Why?
As Skenazy concedes, the commonly known version of the Kitty Genovese murder—in which no one helped Genovese—has “come under fire” (para. 1). According to contemporary accounts, several people did actually try to help Genovese. Does this factual discrepancy matter? Why do you think the original version of the event (regardless of its accuracy) continues to resonate?
Nocera writes that all of us would like to think we would act heroically to save another person in an emergency; as a result, he asserts, we are “quick to condemn those who do nothing at such moments” (para. 14). Do you agree with his conclusion? Why or why not?

WRITING ARGUMENTS: UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES DO BYSTANDERS HAVE AN ETHICAL OBLIGATION TO INTERVENE?

According to Skenazy, the public has passed a turning point, becoming “convinced that it not only had an obligation to help anyone in danger” but also had “the obligation to call the cops anytime it noticed people who could be in danger” (para. 4). In contrast, Nocera suggests that powerful social forces discourage people from helping those in danger. Using these two selections as sources, write an essay offering your own view of the ethical obligations of bystanders. (You might begin by considering fundamental differences between Skenazy’s and Nocera’s arguments.)

CHAPTER 19Under What Circumstances Do Bystanders Have an Ethical Obligation to Intervene?

CHAPTER 19
Under What Circumstances Do Bystanders Have an Ethical Obligation to Intervene?