A Sample of Society

Recently there was a news piece that shocked the nation, or at least some sections of it. A old lady was accosted by robbers and was lying on the street, and five people passed by without extending a helping hand. When the sixth person called the police and help came it was too late to save her life already.

Now there is a lot of talk about prosecuting, or at least humiliating the five people who did not help.

To me this is ridiculous. Firstly, there is no law saying that anyone must help another. If there was, think what dreadful circumstances it could lead to - people might be sued on the grounds of not giving money to beggars, thus leading to their death from starvation. So the most that can be done is public naming.

Would this be fair to them. I think not. They could be worried that it was a scam, or that she was a drug addict, or something of the sort. Were they model citizens? Certainly not. Was their behavior somewhat normal. Certainly yes. All we can say is that in our society, 5 out of 6 people did not help, which reflects on our society as a whole, not those 5 people.

They are just a random sample.

To me, any form of humiliation of them would be a sort of guilt transfer: "we would never behave like that! I WOULD NEVER BEHAVE LIKE THAT! PUNISH THESE PEOPLE!"

But a random sample of society shows us that most of us act like that. So I say let our actions be to promote a better society, not to punish the sample that showed us how we are.