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there’s this phenomenon called the Bystander Effect. in the early 70s, a woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked in the hallway of an apartment. 38 people heard the attack and did nothing to help her - it was thought that because a large group of people witnessed the event, they all thought that it was someone else’s responsibility to intervene.

what I’m learning through school and personal research is that the Bystander Effect is very similar to something called Learned Helplessness.

in the 1950s, there was a study done to examine how helpless animals feel when placed in a hopeless situation. basically, dogs were shocked and punished with no way of avoiding the shocks. they discovered that once the dogs realized there was no way to prevent the shock, the dogs stopped attempting to escape and accepted their fate. they could have avoided the shocks from the beginning by just not going inside, but because there was no other choice they were stuck. they developed Learned Helplessness. the effect is more complex than that, but that’s the gist.

now look at the Bystander Effect. Kitty was dying in the hallway and the other people didn’t help because they likely also felt helpless. they figured their intervention would be futile, so it was probably left to other people. maybe they didn’t feel like a single person in a group of 30+ others would make a difference. they thought that since there was a crowd of people, someone else would have to be the one to take action.

the Bystander Effect is Learned Helplessness. in a large group in a hopeless seeming situation (a situation in which you are helpless) people stop attempting to escape or fix the situation because they think the outcome would be hopeless anyway,

but what happens if you change the situation from a group of 38 people to one of two? the Bystander Effect isn’t nearly as prevalent when the responsibility to act is shared with only one other person. the Bystander Effect happens less frequently when there are a smaller number of people. someone takes the lead.

now imagine this: if we all had the mind set that it was our responsibility, in every hopeless situation, to be the one to act, to help, we wouldn’t have Learned Helplessness in the first place. think of how much stronger and more resilient we would be if we all agreed that it was our personal responsibility to help others.

imagine how many things we could get done or people we could save if we weren't so resigned ourselves. imagine living in a world in which nobody looked at another person and though "that's not my responsibility, someone else will do it."

i want to live in a world where we all look at the horrors and pain and despair and say "that pain is mine. that loss and hurt and grief is all of our loss. that is our responsibility to fix or at least minimize. that person who is dying or lonely or hurting, even if we don't know them: they are our family."

we all have Learned Helplessness because somewhere along the line, we decided the world wasn't our problem.