Indifference
May 9-15, 2009 A
Instead of simply linking to a YouTube video, I preferred to ask Julien Geffray to retrieve it for me so that it could be displayed on my site. So that this sequence remains accessible and you can watch it, without time limitations. Watch these images. It's
you
, it's
us
, and as you will see, it's not recent. The theme: a simple surveillance camera, in a city in the United States, Hartford, filmed a mundane scene.
The MP4 video file
An old man crosses a street in Hartford, United States
A first vehicle avoids him by swerving to the left
The following vehicle is surprised. Instead of stopping, it swerves to the left, hits the man full on, and drives away
The man lies, arms outstretched. No one moves. The previous vehicle, the hit-and-run driver, turns right, and the other does the same
A first vehicle passes by, then a second. None stops. A passerby arrives, calmly. The fallen man is unconscious, lying on his back. He must be taking ... a nap
The two vehicles drive away. Another passes by (A) and doesn't stop. Another (B) arrives. The woman has disappeared, onlookers arrive.
Vehicle B slows down. Vehicle C slows down, observes. A driver stops and a passerby looks at the man lying on the pavement, leaning on the vehicle
The man still doesn't move.
The passersby don't either.....
Then passerby P decides to continue on his way. The car he had leaned on moves to the right.
Vehicle B starts to turn around, the motorcyclist M turns right
Vehicle B completes its turn. The motorcyclist turns to look. The onlookers watch the man lying down. A new vehicle passes without stopping
Vehicle F prefers to swerve and take the first left. The motorcyclist M stops, looks. G is relaxed in his car.
A police vehicle, indicated in red, approaches, changes lanes to overtake
The Motorcyclist
Mgoes home to tell his girlfriend the story. A truck passes.
H, a police vehicle, overtakes and approaches
The police car stops in front of the man who is still unconscious. The truck driver, on the right, seeing the police, decides not to block either
What comment can be made about these images?
What is extraordinary is that none of the witnesses of this scene approaches the injured man, does not examine him. Let's not even talk about the person responsible for the collision who calmly flees. An injured man may be suffering from internal bleeding. There are actions that can be taken, pressure points that can save a life. But no one even thinks of approaching him. This being said, if his spine is injured, he must not be moved and must be transported by professionals on a stretcher. Did any witnesses call an ambulance? Is the car approaching a police car? It's possible. But in that case, it is certainly not able to transport the injured person, and the police officers driving the vehicle also have no skills to examine him.
May 12, 2009
: Several readers told me that this passivity of groups has a name in psychology, it's "the bystander effect". According to this theory, it seems that, in front of a dramatic scene, the more witnesses there are, the less people react. It's the "Panurge's sheep" effect, but the other way around. As no one moves, each member of the group must think it's normal. People may mainly want not to stand out. I remember very clearly what I experienced in the early 1970s, on the beach of Porto, in Corsica. I found a crowd on the beach, looking beyond three-meter waves, at a man who had been carried away, was making signs and was clearly drowning.
No one moved. They stayed there, watching. When I understood what was happening before my eyes, I reacted immediately. I knew I could pass that barrier by swimming underwater, along the bottom. But, given the power of the waves, I would never have been able to bring that guy back. So I had the idea of tying him to a buoy. I remember shouting at those people:
- Hurry up, bring me a child's buoy and a rope. Also bring me a knife, quickly! Go get it from your tents
(there was a campsite on the edge of the beach).
But no one moved, as if they didn't want to miss the show. I had to shout. Then one brought me a circular buoy with a duck head. I deflated it to be able to fasten it around my waist. A woman had brought a long length of gray nylon rope, which she must have used to hang her line. I took the knife, preparing to cut about three meters.
- Oh, you're going to cut it! .....
No, it's not a movie, it's real.
I ran to pass the barrier three hundred meters to the left. The waves seemed less strong. By hugging the bottom for about fifty meters, I could actually resurface on the other side of the barrier. Then I swam to the place where the man was supposed to be struggling. On the beach, my son's mother was making big gestures with her arm, insistent. I thought she was signaling that the wave had taken the man. So I had to hurry and go back the other way, which I did. But when I arrived, she told me she had just been making gestures "like that". At the moment I arrived at the scene, the guy may have just sunk. Anyway, there was at most three meters of water. If I had looked for him underwater, I might have found him. But it was no longer worth speculating about what could have happened if...
There was nothing more to do.
As there was nothing more to see, people went back to their tents. I was told it was a young Danish couple, who had arrived that morning with a charter. I asked what had happened to the young woman.
- Oh, someone must have taken care of her.
I wanted to check. No, everyone had left, leaving this young woman to herself, facing the raging sea. I remember that a couple of Germans showed up saying "we have a car, if it can help...". Within minutes, the beach had emptied.
They all four took care of the young woman. The German was a doctor and gave her a strong sedative. We had dinner with her. After that, we took care of her repatriation. She didn't speak a word of French. During dinner, the hotel owner made signs to me. The sea had calmed down. I understood that she had vomited the body. Indeed, when I arrived on the beach, which was two hundred meters from the hotel, I could see it emerging from the water, downstream of the waves, under the light of the moon. The campers had returned. There was something to watch and they were again gathered. I went into the water and went to retrieve the guy. He must have been 1.90 meters tall but the rigor mortis had made him as stiff as a piece of wood. I still found two guys to help me carry him. I held his head and they by the ankles.
Death is also that simple, that quick. Crowds react with passivity. When the Titanic hit an iceberg, the sea was calm. People put on their life jackets, in a calm and disciplined manner. I...