THE BYSTANDER EFFECT
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Hi Debra - Aleksandar linked me to this video with the context of my Blog "In the Presence of a Spoon" - The Margaret Bentley Story. Hope you'll join me and contribute. Thanks Linda
Thank you Aleksandar for bring these posts to my attention and I will use the gist of what was shared, relevant in here which can be helpful in..."in the presence of a spoon." Peace + Love Linda
What is interesting is you don't see this effect in the Middle East. So there are significant cultural differences at play here. Part of the main reason is the honour culture. It is not honourable to be a bystander. In fact, you are more likely to be shamed in public or by family or friends if they find out.
Mary Watkins and Helene Shulman, in their 2008 Book "Psychologies of Liberation" assert that psychological disenfranchisement which I find so prevalent in our culture (such as apathy, dissociation and numbing) extorts a heavy toll. Passive bystanding, watching without seeing, and observing without engagement, is a sort of self-mutilation, an amputation of sight, and a “severing of the self” (p. 66).
James Hillman (in Re-Visioning Psychology, 1975) suggests, “The eye and wound are the same” (1975, p. 107): the thing we refuse to see and the denial of that thing by the eye that does not see are both violent acts, which effect a trauma on the psyche of all involved.
On the other hand, witnessing is an invested seeing, a connection with the thing that is being watched, an active desire or willingness to engage. Active witnessing is a healing process that works on many levels, individual, interpersonal, community and even the environment and the natural world.
Here's a short blog post I did awhile back if you want a little mor...