The case for not “minding your own”
“Polite” neighbours do nothing as girl is stabbed to death
A police investigator said on the program that neighbours heard a man and a woman yelling but thought it was a domestic dispute and didn’t call the authorities.
… Is that an excuse for nonintervention in a violent situation? A domestic dispute that involves yelling (I’m guessing violent yelling) requires intervention. Responsible adults do not yell at / beat each other during arguments. Unfortunately, it’s all too often the case in China that domestic violence is ignored. I once saw a man repeatedly kicking a woman as she lay on the ground, while several security guards stood roughly a hundred meters away doing nothing since it was obviously “a private matter”.
This problem of doing nothing in the face of ill-behaviour is not just apparent with respect to domestic violence; I’ve witnessed several occasions of thieves snatching wallets or purses, and jogging away from a crime scene unmolested and pursued only by their direct victims. What sort of “harmonious society” is complacent to behaviour that is contrary to its value system? I think that the following quote is very applicable in this situation, on quite a few levels:
all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing
