One of the most disturbing news stories I have seen recently
was something on my local news a couple of days ago. The report came from a
local shopping centre where police had been negotiating with a man to come down
from on top of the building. Sadly, however, he eventually jumped and died.
But the disturbing side of the story was to do with the
onlookers: some of whom were reaching for camera phones to record the incident,
while others were actively joking and shouting for him to jump. I found this
last section particularly sickening – particularly the young lad who admitted
on camera that some of the people he was hanging around with (i.e. him) had
been amongst those catcalling the man.
There is psychological evidence to show that people who are
part of the crowd are less likely to take action than a person on their own to
help somebody – i.e. there’s a sense of “well someone else will do it”, but the
fascination with recording everything is relatively new. It seems that the ability
to carry a broadcast quality camera around in our pocket and instantly upload
anything to the Internet has not only turned us into voyeurs on our own lives,
but also desensitised us to the world around us.
However: to actually laugh and
joke and urge somebody to jump to their death is a far more worrying
development.
This follows on from a week where we have had a number of
problems with local kids, which started with a valve being stolen from our
tyre, continued with a wheelie bin being thrown at our door and most recently,
albeit not directed at us, an attempt to smash as many car wing mirrors as they
possibly could in the street (a series of events which has convinced us it’s
time to move somewhere less semi-evolved)
With all of the above I keep saying to myself that I can’t
understand the pleasure that could be gained from performing these actions: nor
why someone would want to single us out, when all we have done is to keep to
ourselves. And the truth is that it’s nothing to do with us – we are just easy
victims and they have no understanding nor empathy of the effect of their
actions. It’s just senseless violence for the sake of something to do.
I have no understanding for the kind of life they have led
that can bring them to a state of being where attacking someone senselessly, or
jokingly calling for someone’s death, can have no meaningful context or can be
seen to be funny. Where is the pleasure in that?
But then how can I possibly have any understanding? I grew
up in a completely different area, with parents who taught me right from wrong.
I grew up in a completely different world, where people talked with each other
instead of burying their face in their iPad. Although the kids at our school
were pretty nasty sometimes I doubt that many of them would have shouted at
someone to jump off a building, if any.
And why should they care about me? They live in a world where the only goal is self gratification and there are little or no consequences.
All of this is left me thinking about an old episode of Star
Trek: The Generation.
In the story, entitled “Darmok” Captain Picard encounters a
race who initially seem to talk in gibberish despite all attempts to translate
them. In desperation the alien captain kidnaps Picard and takes them to the
planet below, where he constantly says (amongst other things) “Darmok and Jilad
at Tanagra”.
As the episode continues we slowly begin to understand that
their language is entirely contextual and everything they say relates back to
their ancient stories and history – the example being the story of Darmok and
Jilad, who started off as enemies but came to be friends after they faced a
battle together: only once you know this shared history does the sentence make
any sense.
Although there is no realistic way that such language could
have evolved the idea is an interesting concept – what would it do to our
society if the only way we had of communicating with one another was to talk
about shared experiences and relate them to our history? Would this foster a
greater understanding of one another and read empathy for different viewpoints
which it now became necessary to understand and relate to in order to do
anything even as basic as trade with one another?
If we had no choice but to empathise with one another surely
this would change the way we view our own lives and the world around us?
5 comments:
You make some interesting points. I remember this particular Star Trek episode as one of the most annoying, but now you've made me reconsider and I want to see it again.
Shaka, when the walls fell. There is a power in shared language, it's one of the reasons da yoof has its own slang. If you don't speak it, you don't belong.we also have a generation in some areas that has never known anything other than joblessness and a stultifying lack of aspiration. These people have had kids and those kids don't have even a dim memory of their parents working or doing anything worthwhile, so what hope is there that they will be any better than they are?
This is such a poignant, beautifully-written commentary about some truly disturbing events. One of my favorite posts of yours ever.
I am worried for your long-term well-being in that particular neighborhood and hope you can move sooner rather than later. Take care.
When we moved to our small town we were a little worried about the neighborhood - the family next door was a single mom & two troubled boys. We're pretty sure they sell drugs out of the house. But the other neighbors are old school & we all watch out for each other. We were much relieved to not have to worry about what you're having to worry about.
Sometimes I wonder if there IS a common language anymore...
P.S. Nice to have an Argent sighting! :)
Simply shocking.....
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