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A Woman Was Just Raped On A Train In Pennsylvania While The Other Riders Did Nothing
The diffusion of responsibility is killing our bodies, our planet, and our souls.
If you’re on the young side of 30, you might not know the name Kitty Genovese. But you should.
In 1964, Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment building in Queens, New York, at 2:30 a.m. She screamed for help. It was March 13th, spring, windows might have been open. Certainly buildings weren’t as soundproof as they are now. The city was quiet.
Nobody helped Kitty Genovese. One guy yelled, “Let that girl alone,” and that was it. The assailant ran away, briefly, but came back 10 minutes later. He found Kitty where she had crawled behind the apartment building, stabbed her some more, raped her, and stole her money.
Although the number of bystanders in the Kitty Genovese case is disputed, her murder nonetheless spurred the creation of the American 911 emergency service and led to studies of “the bystander effect” and the diffusion of responsibility.
In a crowd, people will always expect somebody else to do something. It doesn’t matter if the number of bystanders is two or 38 (the number famously attached to the Genovese story).
