Are we desensitised?
SHAMPOO IS BETTER!
Last week, I went for a run. Because I’m fit. As I was jogging through Hyde Park, I noticed a man sprawled on a bench, seemingly unconscious.
“Junkie,” I thought, and continued running. However, as I got closer, I noticed he was reasonably well-dressed and clean-shaven. His head was thrown back and his mouth hung open. Like a corpse. As I jogged past, he did not move at all. When I got to the end of the park, I turned around to look once more. The man still hadn’t moved. I hovered for a few seconds, then a possum ran in front of me and I chased him because I love the possums in Hyde Park. They make me feel like a bush ranger. I ran home, then ate a can of corn and played Diddy Kong Racing. After all, I am a grown up.
The next day, the man was gone. I wondered whether he’d simply woken up, or been gently pushed into Sydney harbour by the city council. Had I run past a dead body and not noticed/cared? It was entirely possible. I live in Darlinghurst. I pass smacked-out junkies more often than I buy toilet paper. I have frequently seen homeless people brawling, interrupted doorway poops, witnessed various acts of vandalism, and been a spectator to more than a few domestic disputes. On top of this, I get asked for money every time I leave my house. But enough about the Red Cross, because the junkies are pretty annoying too.
Sometimes, I’ll see a couple fighting, and the dude will push or hit his lady around a little. I’ll think, “How could he!” but my default reaction in these situations is to always look the other way. Sure, I’m a post-feminist/alkaline or whatever (I was born under the sign of Taurus), but I’m not prepared to get glassed in the face to save one of my sisters.
Am I a bad person?
Don’t answer that.
I’ve been on the other side of the spectrum too. I was once attacked while waiting for the bus, because I looked at a person. Nobody seemed to mind much. And I once tried to fight someone on York Street, which attracted a few stares, but not so much as a comment from passers-by.
Have we become desensitised? Or are we just tougher?
I don’t know, I’m from the Hills. We used to kill bees when we were bored.
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12 Responses to “Are we desensitised?”
Statistically you were more likely to help the dead guy out than if you were with a group/in a crowd. Yet you still didn’t. I don’t know if I would have either. A musician in America is fighting for his life with a hole in his skull after intervening in a wife beating. Just to put this in perspective.
I went to a Daniel Kitson show where he talked about not walking past ‘dead people’. The next day I saw a lady who was reasonably horizontal and deceased looking. I thought of Kitson, felt guilty and poked her. Nothing happened. I poked her again.
“whhaaaaaaaat? I’mmmmm sleeeepin’”
I said
“Just making sure you weren’t dead”
She said
“Fanks”
Put her head down again
The world is not going to hell in a handbasket, everything always has been and always will be fine. This is a common thought..
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
- Socrates, 470 BC
“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly disrespectful and impatient of restraint”
- Hesiod, 8 BC
“The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress.”
- Peter the Hermit, 1274 AD
..and yet, civilisation hasn’t ended yet, amazing right?
That Socrates quote blew my mind when I saw the when & who.
Who is this guy neek? He’s smart.
Desensitisation happens for a reason. I think it’s a good thing, not a bad thing. It’s a coping mechanism. If we broke down every time we saw something bad, we’d be completely ineffectual (and that includes at possibly helping a person in trouble).
It’s a completely modern phenomenon, the idea of desensitisation (as an anomaly). It’s only in the last hundred years or so that science has removed death and gore from the realm of every day life. People die, it happens. We just kind of forget that it happens, because it’s all compartmentalised to the hospitals, to the morgues. I get really annoyed when people complain about violence in movies and video games and stuff for that reason. The media is violent because life is violent.
Besides, if he was dead, what could you have done to help him?
You’re not a bad person, you’re just a person.
[...] didn’t stop to help, but she thought about it, which was nice. She’s a writer so she wrote about it. It was an interesting moral [...]
Was this “can of corn” you ate of the creamed variety? If so, I absolutely approve. Creamed corn rocks.
Conditioner is better.
I love Diddy Kong Racing!!!
You did good. We’ll all be dead soon. Hey, is that my suit? Wait. Maybe it was me. Or him.
Shit, someone said creamed corn
I agree with the first comment, you’re less likely to help if there are other people around. It’s called the bystander effect. Instead, you adopted a kind of ‘if a tree fell in the woods and no one was there to hear it’ approach. But I still don’t know if I would have helped either.
Who says I wasted all those tens of thousands of dollars worth of HECS.
*dusts hands*
I think in a way yes we have become desensitized, but even though you might know you need to do something sometimes there are many factors that will stop you. Yes the bystander effect, fear or many other things.
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