Lesson Eight: Stand Out
In 1964 a woman was stabbed to death outside her apartment while about a dozen neighbors watched.
Why did no one intervene? No one stood up because no one stood up. If one person had yelled or gone to help, it is likely that they all would have. This is called the bystander effect.
Everyone waits for someone else to stand up. The more people see what is happening, the less responsibility each individual feels to intervene.
We will even convince ourselves that not intervening is the right thing to do because no one else is doing anything. Maybe the girl being brutally stabbed to death deserved it.
We worry that if we intervene, it means that we approve of whatever she did to end up in this situation. We mark ourselves as righteous.
Meanwhile, a killer is emboldened and a woman is dead, not because we are righteous, but because we did nothing.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing.”
Neutrality is not righteousness.
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality." - Desmond Tutu
Jesus always stood on the side of the oppressed. That is righteousness.
This is the story of Sodom of Gomorrah. When a few bullies showed up at the door and demanded to rape the visitors, not one townsperson intervened. None were found to be righteous and so they all perished.
What can you do? You are just one person after all.
Stop being just one person. Join a group. Start a group. Show up. Speak up. Write your congressperson or letters to the editor. Put a sign in your yard or a bumper sticker on your car. Sign a petition. Give money to organizations you support - boycott those who are complicit.
Someone is watching you and waiting until you stand.
There’s another funny thing about group dynamics. Sometimes it takes just one person to stand up and say enough for the whole room to join.
The world doesn’t need bystanders, it needs upstanders.
Be an upstander.
I’m not saying it’s easy. It’s hard. Sometimes we have to do hard things. We are on a dangerous trajectory and it’s not going to get easier unless the trajectory changes.
This is part 9 of a series inspired by my reading of On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons Learned From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Snyder as part of my effort to offer Christian insight to those wondering what to do in this moment