Jerry Mazza
Online Journal
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
"The “diffusion of reaction,” part of the “bystander effect (also known as bystander apathy, Genovese syndrome, diffused responsibility or bystander intervention) is a psychological phenomenon in which someone is less likely to intervene in an emergency situation when other people are present and able to help than when he or she is alone,” says Wikipedia....
Combined with the average TV viewers’ willingness to turn from the news of Iraq, where bodies are being blown into smithereens, to the sports news or a cooking or “reality” show, we have a magnificent portrait of “diffusion reactions,” “bystander effects,” all under the compelling Voice of Authority, whether it is Bush himself, Cheney, Condi, or the Aryan anchormen and women, blond, well-coiffed, uniformly suited, high-heeled, the male counterparts in pinstriped suits, tailored shirts, and silk ties, the paradigms of authority, class, cash, and command.
The question is, how do we stimulate the conscience, the will to do right, the ethical ego, the conscious knowledge of right from wrong from the manipulation of the lower impulses of folk at all levels of society? I think this is the key to taking back this society from “The War on Terror,” whose terrorist originators keep the population in fear, angst, and mechanical obeisance.
How else to explain our own people lied into the Iraq war, armies attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, armies of young people being asked to kill and maim, to commit blinding atrocities. And they obey. And they pay, with wounds of the body and wounds of the mind, haunted, until they are blotto with antidepressants and other drugs. They are shocked bystanders, their reactions diffused by the thousands who fight with them, thinking someone will speak up, someone will put a halt to the carnage. Yet no one does. It goes on and on and on . . .
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