Last week, I put something out there: that I don’t think today’s social norms foster the kind of friendship that deepens us as people and as faith beings.

We started the conversation while reminiscing about the good old days when people noticed when you died.

The Man Who 75 People Watched For an Hour

The same year that Natalie Wood died, the police in Almeda, California received a call from a woman whose son was attempting to drown himself.

Her 53 year old son had waded into the San Francisco Bay. He was still standing there, neck deep in the 60 degree water when police and firefighters arrived to respond to the call.

In some ways, the conditions for rescue seemed ideal. The man, who community members reported was depressed and off his meds, was not submerged over his head. And he was not moving quickly. Reporters noted that he stood in the same spot, neck deep, for more than an hour.

This relatively easy scenario, unfortunately, was muddied by the fact that the emergency workers were not only uncertified in water rescue, but they were strictly forbidden from even entering the water—which was considered Coast Guard jurisdiction.  Even more unfortunately, in a strange Catch 22, since the man was standing in such shallow water, the Coast Guard could not use their boat (and their rescue helicopter was on another call).

So the firefighters, policemen, and 75 beachgoers watched as this woman’s son stepped forward into the water and drowned to death.

Eventually, an off-duty nurse in her twenties dove into the water and retrieved the body.

In the aftermath, the fire chief was asked by stunned reporters if he would’ve entered the water to save a drowning child.

He responded, “Well, if I was off duty I would know what I would do, but I think you’re asking me my on-duty response and I would have to stay within our policies and procedures because that’s what’s required by our department to do.”

Though the local policy forbidding rescue personnel from entering the water has since been reversed, no known charges of wrongdoing were filed. As with Natalie Wood, the official judgment was there was no crime.

Why So Serious?

I know. This is dramatic and sobering stuff.

Like Natalie’s story, this one has a way of jarring us to attention. And while I’m committed to moving beyond sensationalism and working more practically toward a stronger sense of community, I think it’s important to pause in the uncomfortable events a little bit longer…to further confront the mystery of how people (including ourselves) can live detached from our fellow human beings… both in unusual scenarios like these and in life’s ordinary moments.

When Rescuers Don’t Rescue

Besides, it is important to note that while these stories are exceptions, they are not one time occurrences. Many similarly confounding incidents occur each year in communities across the world.

Not long ago, for example, you may remember the headline about two firefighters who refused to assist a man having a heart attack across the street from their headquarters.

The story, recounted by his daughter after his death, tugged the heart strings of the region.

“[The firefighter] just leaned up against the fire engine with his arms folded the entire time. I can’t get that image out of my head,” she said.

Local mayor, Vincent Gray, was outraged.

“Common sense and common decency would’ve said you go to someone in distress,” said Gray. “Who in the world is going to punish someone for violating protocol but you save someone’s life in the process? I’m not buying that.”

When School Staff Don’t Intervene

Or your mind may be taken to the growing number of students who like 15-year-old Phoebe Prince have been driven to suicide by bullying. For three months, Phoebe was targeted by two boys and four girls who were eventually indicted with felony charges including statutory rape, bodily injury, harassment, stalking, and disturbing a school assembly. 

District Attorney Elizabeth Scheibel stressed the teens’ conduct far exceeded the limits of normal teenage drama.  But it was not just the teens who concerned her. “The actions or inactions of some adults at the school were troublesome.” Once again, however, her findings echoed a line we’re growing used to hearing: the adults’ failure to intervene was disturbing, but did not violate any laws. 

Once again, in failing to intervene, no crime was committed.

Equally disturbing are stories like that of a young New Jersey mother who was viciously beaten by a larger woman, while her 2-year-old son tried helplessly to defend her. A group of adult strangers watched, even taking video on their cell phones, but did not call 911. When the video later surfaced, it showed multiple adults doing nothing but standing by watching as she and her toddler screamed during the brutal attack. 

‘I think it’s messed up no one came to my rescue,’ the mom said.

But while assaulting someone is a criminal act, watching while someone is being beaten is also NOT a crime.

There are many, many more stories just like these.

It leads us to ask the question (which I’ll get to in the coming weeks), Why does this happen? Why do people fail to feel enough attachment to act in the interest of another person in need?

Some would caution that in attempting to answer that, we can’t simply write off the bystanders as monsters. Lt. Kellene Davis, who was responsible for the firehouse that failed to serve the man having the heart attack, is quick to tell you she’s not a monster. She blames misunderstandings, a malfunctioning P.A. system, and lack of information for the oversight. “I feel bad because that’s not how I am,” she said.

And while police condemned the people who stood by during the attack on the young mother, it was the mother herself who cautioned against demonizing the onlookers, insisting they should not be seen as monsters.

There seems to be a sense that in complex and sometimes shocking scenarios like these, people’s awareness is sometimes clouded and they aren’t necessarily prepared or courageous enough to act on their stated values. That their sub-par responses unintentionally break from what they themselves know is best.

Ramping Back Down to Normal Life

Tensions that arise in us as we read about these emergency scenarios may give us insight into how civility and care get back-burnered by ordinary people in every day life as well. Little things are also changing as we stand by observing our culture.

Today’s infants, for example, spend much less time being held and more time in carriers, car seats, and strollers than they did in the past. Modern extended families have become much more geographically spread out as well (according to Notre Dame Psychology Professor Darcia Narvaez).

Social habits like holding children less or moving away from your adult siblings is just a natural part of a changing, modern society, we note. There is no crime involved here either.

Or think about how college kids today rank about 40 percent lower in empathy than their counterparts of 20 or 30 years ago, according to University of Michigan researchers. Have they set out to be self-asbsorbed? Probably not. They are likely acting out of impulse, or out of conditioning, or perhaps are drawing from a different set of social skills than those that went before them. Such a decrease in empathy may not foster the healthiest climate, but there’s nothing illegal or criminal going down.

Similarly, take the decreasing number of friendships people report today, according to one Cornell survey of more than 2,000 people. Forty-eight percent of participants report having only one close friend, 18 percent report having only two, and more than 4 percent didn’t list any friends at all. Did these people philosophically aim to be isolated? Did they mean to detach themselves from those around them? Of course not, It’s more likely they fell into unintended isolation due to life circumstance or perhaps that they need more developed social skills than the ones they acquired.

So how do we hold all of this? Both in the moment when extreme headlines cross our screens and in the everyday, local moments when we experience a fleeting awareness that civility and connectivity is slipping?

The legal system may not prosecute crimes in any of these cases, but that doesn’t mean increasing disconnection is okay, healthy, or even desirable.

The first step toward a more connected life experience, then, is raising our collective awareness. It’s giving ourselves permission to pause and hold onto those fleeting concerns about the pace and disconnectedness of society. To recognize they’re not just the rambling worries of the old-fashioned. They’re valid, instinctive critique of the direction our culture is moving.

What about you? Do these fleeting worries come to you? And if so, what other observations of everyday life suggest to you that social-connectedness might be slipping?

 

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