II.

 

Latane and Darley found that the crowd behavior in the Kitty Genovese case was very much like that of crowds in other emergency situations. Car accidents, drownings, fires, and attempted suicides all seem to attract bystanders who watched these dramas in helpless fascination. Riveted by the events, the bystanders were distressed and anxious, often full of remorse afterwards, but unwilling to act at the time. Their behavior was, as Latane and Darley put it, “[n]either helpful nor heroic; but it was not indifferent or apathetic either.”

In general, people in nonemergency situations are quite willing to help when asked. Why aren't we even more willing in emergencies, in which the need for help is so much greater? Darley and Latane concluded that it was something about the nature of emergencies and not some pathology of the individuals who made up the crowd that accounted for the bewildering disassociation of bystanders in such situations. Emergencies, by their very nature, often involve actual harm or the threat of harm. An emergency can cost the life not only of the victim but of the intervenor, and the result even of a successful intervention rarely makes anyone better off afterwards than before the emergency event. Moreover, emergencies are, by definition, anomalous and rare events. Few individuals are prepared by training or practice to know how to handle such situations. Emergencies are unforeseen, and arise suddenly without warning. The bystander does not have time for consultation because the emergency, of all events, requires immediate, urgent action. Nor does the individual confronting an emergency come face-to-face simply with a single choice, but rather with a whole series of determinations, which he or she must usually make alone, even in the midst of a crowd.

The bystander must notice that something is happening, and then interpret the event as a real emergency. Further, he must decide that he has some personal responsibility for coping with it. At each stage of this process, the ambiguity of the event can paralyze a bystander, who is then forced to recycle through the entire process of decision. Is the event really an assault or just a noisy disagreement between two lovers? Are those screams of terror or peals of excited, nervous laughter? One witness to the Genovese murder said, “We thought it was a lovers' quarrel and I went back to bed.” And if it is decided that the event really is an assault and some action ought to be taken, who should take it? Another witness to the events on Austin Street said, “I didn't want to get involved.” It wasn't his job: it was for the police, or for Kitty Genovese's friends—he didn't know the woman—or perhaps for the woman herself to get out of the jam in which she found herself. To be “involved” meant taking on incalculable risks: suppose the man was arrested and tried; the person who called the police would have to testify; suppose the murderer was acquitted; might he then come after the witness? And finally, what exactly is the thing to be done: by the time most people had sorted out the salient facts, it was probably too late for the police to be contacted, arrive on the scene, and intervene in time to save the woman's life. Yet the middle-aged onlookers were scarcely in a position to tackle an armed killer themselves. They were not trained to act in such situations, had no experience of such horrors, and really had no idea what to do. Most people who saw the Genovese murder said simply, “I don't know—I don't know why I didn't do anything.”

To summarize, we can say that there are five distinct stages through which the bystander must successively pass before effective action can be taken: (1) Notice: he must become aware that some unusual occurrence is taking place; (2) Recognition: he must be able to assess the event and define it as an emergency; (3) Decision: he must then decide that something must be done, that is, he must find a convincing reason for action to be taken; (4) Assignment: the bystander must then assign some person, himself or another, or some institution to be responsible for action; he must answer the question “who should act in these circumstances?” (5) Implementation: having decided what action should be taken, he must then see that it is actually done. If at any stage in this sequence a crucial ambiguity is introduced, then the whole process must begin again. The presence of ambiguity in urban life, not the callousness of urban dwellers, is precisely what makes emergency intervention in cities so problematic. In Johnson City, Texas, one is likely to know whether the man who has just slumped against the doorway is John, who recently had a coronary bypass, or Jack, the town drunk. In Queens, it is less likely that one knows, or that one can predict what will happen if one intervenes.

So it was with the horrifying events of the three years 1991 – 1994 in the former state of Yugoslavia: fascinated, frightened, appalled, the civilized world was anything but apathetic. And yet, like Kitty Genovese's murderer, the killers in Bosnia returned again and again, once the threat of outside intervention dissipated, leaving the rest of us as anguished bystanders.

Someday people will ask questions about the terrible crimes in Bosnia that are reminiscent of those asked after the murder of Kitty Genovese: How could the civilized, comfortable, and safe world have let those crimes happen? For much of the sequence of events in Bosnia has a parallel with the crimes on Austin Street, especially the pattern of aggression that falters when confronted but which returns when it is not suppressed, and also the pattern of rationalization that organizes our thinking, and prevents decisive action in emergencies. The results of Darley and Latane's research offer a key to understanding what went wrong for more than three years in Yugoslavia as well as what went wrong that night in Queens. And this understanding can yield insights into the nature of the society of nation-states, a society that was just as shaken by the horror it witnessed but did nothing to stop as was the small community of neighbors in Queens.