Posted by Trouble (195.147.150.121) on April 07, 2000 at 11:28:13:
In Reply to: A post for Trouble/Tracy. posted by drummer on April 07, 2000 at 07:26:59:
Hmm...I see what you say, but I've posted to a few ouch people since my earlier outpourings of outrage. I've said I don't hold them all the same, that'd be rediculous. A lot of people try to help. ouch members or not.
However, I don't believe in idly standing by and watching another person get attacked. I believe that if we're going to save ourselves from certain catastrophy we need to *help* each other. I've been *teased* like they tease hub and hated it more than anything in the world, and whilst I now accept that he likes it, I would still do the same for someone else I thought was getting a bum rush.
After all, you could argue that what really caused the Holocaust was a lot of german people standing by saying "oh well, it's not really to do with us", whilst 6 million Jews were murdered (not to mention the Russian gypsies and the Poles).
I don't think standing by watching someone else getting verbally or physically attacked is necessarily a good thing. I once heard about a girl who was murdered by her near where I used to live. He stabbed her, but she broke away and ran down the street screaming for help, he caught up with her and finished what he started. When the police went door to door the next day all her neighbours said they never saw or heard anything wrong, until the police pointed to the bloody handprints on about 5 consecutive doors from her own where she'd pounded for help.
As for your anthropology study, could I have stood by and watched them murder a defenceless baby girl just because she was the 6th one born? NO! No more than I can sit idly by and watch programmes about the "Dying Rooms of China" where they leave little girls to die just because boys are more desired without wanting to do something about it. But then I suppose you accept that as part of their "culture".
I'm sorry - my ethics, moral code, sense of humanity, call it what you will won't allow me to.
Now I know I've cited some extreme cases, but you get the point I'm making I hope. When is it ok to stand by and when to intervene?
Me? I try to defend first and ask questions later. A few hurt feelings (mine included) are worth it to save someone else's. And I'd still do the same if it was personal safety at risk rather than feelings.
I don't find human beings interesting. I find a lot of them to be self-interested to the point of being self obssessed. I find some others of them to be bent on self-destruction. I find more of them to be uncaring and uninterested in anyone else, taking sport at others expense (whether human or animal). That's what I find, and it makes me so sad I could just cry. And that's not a joke.
Trouble