From a quick read, “diffusion of responsibility” is part of the bystander effect, so you were right.
That’s what passes for “society” to many (most?) people!
Also, how come the news never talks about all the schoolchildren who AREN’T slaughtered in mass shootings?
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Well, technically it’s the only way any human being ever learns to do anything when construed broadly in that way.
I’m talking about how people act in time-limited situations, though, not our general reliance on observation and mimicry for learning new behaviors.
[quote=“wysinwyg, post:44, topic:70224”]
I’m talking about how people act in time-limited situations, though, not our general reliance on observation and mimicry for learning new behaviors.
[/quote]We are pack-animals at heart. In stressful situations we tend to fall back on it.
I don’t know what that means. I know how MOST people use them. Cops are a tiny percentage of gun owners and many of them aren’t even “gun” people. They barely know how to use and clean they one they have and scrape by on performance tests.
Cops are a COMPLETELY different creature than you or I or any other citizen. They have a duty to get involved. If a private citizen group had corned that guy for stealing or something and all of them shot him, they would all be up on murder charges. But cops are a special animal.
Ill trained/incompetent/whatever cops and criminals shooting each other are the statistic outliers of the 80 Million + other gun owners who shoot NO ONE.
Or a blanket? Seems like so many of these situations could be ‘resolved’ by throwing a tarp or a net over the person.
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I see the snark - but 2 points:
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Why does the focus of the news have to be when things go wrong? I know CBS or whoever has a serious where they showcase interesting people. Walter Cronkite’s “On the Road”. Maybe it is why people used to come to town from miles around to watch a hanging. Deep down we are a bit macabre and dark. “If it bleeds, it leads.” seems to still be true. Not just violence, but sex. BB is no exception, with the story on Nicki Minaj’s brother with a 12 year old.
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There have been cases where people have stopped aggressors before it got worse. They make the news, but just a blip. Why? See point 1.
As for the whole concept of “diffusion of responsibility”, I think it is a seldom-remarked upon problem of alienation/disenfranchisement/asymmetry in general. When people truly feel that they are not personally responsible for what government, police, and others do - they are unlikely to act. It is easy to by cynical and say “Sure, but they don’t really do this stuff in my name. It doesn’t really affect my reputation.” But that’s just a defense mechanism to distance oneself from the problem. Nearly everybody does it and it never, never works.
It’s bad enough to witness an assault or a murder. But in this case you are actually paying somebody to do it. You, personally! I feel just as responsible as if I paid for a hitman. They are my employee, and they are murdering somebody! To me, sharing that responsibility does not dilute it, it makes it stronger.
Many people I think doubt themselves, that all lives should be of equal worth, but in their daily lives they don’t believe it, or act upon it. If you assume that social life is hierarchical, and that you inherited a place in it, this limits your involvement and your ability to act (indeed, this is it’s purpose!). But if you know that your life is just as important as the cops, and whoever they are abusing, then you don’t get to assume that somebody else - probably somebody you don’t even trust - will take care of it.
Good fucking god, what the hell is wrong with the Police?
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We say “all lives are of equal worth” but in our heads there’s always the little voice saying 'but my life is more equal worth than others… and my family… and my friends… also my co-workers… not Jeff from across the hall though, he keeps muttering under his breath."
I think, just like with everything else, we hope for that magical Mr/Mrs. Someone Else will make sure all lives are treated with equal value.
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I’m sure that the well used trope “I feared for my life” will be trotted out. Internal affairs will clear the badge wearing executioners shown in the video. Personally, I wouldn’t shed a single damn tear if someone went vigilante and tracked down these useless shits and did the same to them. Let their families experience the same suffering the that that man’s family is going through. Also, the chief is a piece of absolute shit for backing up those guys if he saw the damn video. When are the people going strike back against the tyranny of this shit.
Mr. Woods was number 1091. Five more citizens were killed by police since Mr. Woods was killed on Wednesday.
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Lack of training. Seems like a relatively common thing for cops to just start spray-and-pray at the first sound of gunfire.
Also, possibly cover-your-partners’-asses-in-solidarity effect.
See I am worried it IS part of their training. Perhaps “under the table”, for the reason I listed above.
It would be easier to go after one cop who screwed up, but a jury would find it harder to condemn 5 upstanding officers. One could be a bad apple, but if all 5 officers fired, there MUST have been a good reason, right?
I don’t relate. It seems like such a fundamental bias to leave in people unexamined. There is literally no way to ever be fair to people without seeing the logic of it. Assuming that one is somehow more special because they are themselves is a problem that people seriously need to get over. It’s too infantile for social cohesion, so a lot of people need to be immune to that illusion for any kind of just society to exist.
Another angle of the shooting:
The only differences I can see between this and the Chicago shooting are that one officer thought it was brave to walk into the path of the victim and then seemed surprised that he felt under attack. And it was five shooters rather than just one.
Which is good.
Katanas at Pike Place!
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