Ignorance in Modern Society

That girl was very lucky that you was around.
I wish that more people like you are on this planet.
And they do but you don't always recognize them until something positive is happened.

So I give you this: and and and and a digital

I have two experiences of this.
The first was in Wakefield, Yorkshire.
A drunk, well dressed in a suit, but still a drunk, was sitting on a bench with three terrified girls (I'd guess they were about 16).
To make matters worse, a gang of young lads had joined in the "fun".
Quite where security was, I do not know but they were clearly a useless bunch, unworthy of their wages.
I, at the time, was a greasy biker, dressed in leather and looking less than like someone who you'd want to play with.
I was also doing 4 or 5 heavy training sessions in tae kwon do every week so fighting was pretty much average for me.
I sat down next to the girls who, already scared, looked very much like they were going to pee themselves.
I simply said, in a rather rough voice, "I'm not with them"and the lads ran, followed by a stumbling drunk who I grabbed by the coat and offered a suggestion involving sex and travel.
My good deed for the day done, I returned to the nurses home where I was doing rather a lot of hanging around with a nurse I knew biblically and hoped for a hot encounter that evening.

The second didn't go quite so well.
After a skin full of Newcastle brown ale, I decided a kebab was a really good idea (You do very silly things after drinking Newcastle brown).
As I entered the Indian take away, I noticed a 15 year old girl I knew, but not biblically as she was only 15.
She was the daughter of a bloke I knew quite well but didn't actually like all that much and who was a wife beater; well, he was until she had the good mind to pack her bags and leave the git.
The daughters, for whatever reason had stayed.
She got a text and, being drunk, I peeked.
It was so hot, I'm amazed the phone didn't go in for a bit of self combustion.
It detailed EXACTLY what this guy was going to do to her when she got back.
"WOW", exclaimed I, "your boyfriend is a bit wild".

"It's my dad".

People commonly make an error and assume I stopped drinking because I entered Islam but that's far from the whole story. This was a far greater factor as, had I'd been sober, rather than smashed out of my skull, I could have done something about that, but I failed.

I applaud your good deed, and agree if only we as a human race had more concern for our fellow man's well being and safety in any situation to lend a helping hand, many of those who suffer as this young girl had to would stop almost immediately. Our problem is our world has become heartless and cold, self-centered, and greedy, and if it does not profit them, then they have no concern what happens.

There was a big story in China a couple of years ago about a very young girl who was run over by 2 different trucks while over a dozen pedestrians just watched and walked by.  It's unfathomable to me, but there's no way of knowing what those people were thinking.

I think many people take their political leaders as their moral guides. If a country's leaders abuse the shit out of civilians who are of a different kind, then that country's citizens can't be blamed for thinking abuse of the "different" is acceptable. If we were all to hold our political representatives to a higher level of behaviour... ah, but most of us can't be bothered. In October last year I wrote a post for my personal blog called "The war against women" that illustrated the current standard of acceptable behaviour in the Western world.
http://barlowscayman.blogspot.com/2012/ … women.html

The political leader from where?
My origin country or the country where I current live?
For me it doesn't matter because they are not my moral guides.

Wonderful story and I'm so glad you helped the poor girl. Certainly the ending would have been tragic had you not stepped forward.

I think that people turning a blind eye to things like this, crime, corruption and all the other evils in the world really is a manifestation of the way that THEIR cultures traditionally deal with people who denounce, complain and take action.

For example, I was born and raised in Canada and we have 'relatively' honest politicians and honest dedicated police we can trust. We've grown up knowing that we can count on police in ANY situation and respect them. We also know that our society has thus come to know that they can denounce or report things like you describe, they can protest things that are wrong and won't suffer any repercussions, so we are more vigilant and do report.

Now in Brazil, it's completely the opposite. Politicians and police are more corrupt and bigger crooks than the criminals. Organized crime here is almost as powerful as the government too. People who have complained about ANYTHING since this country was colonized have always ended up missing or dead - so obviously the people here have developed this 'selective blindness'. "I didn't see anything, I don't know anything, I wasn't even there" attitude.

I'm sure it's just how we've all been conditioned since birth from the environment where we grew up and spent most of our years... if you feel safe in being able to take action you will; if you don't feel safe in doing so, you won't do it.

  Cheers, 
  William James Woodward, Brazil & Canada Expert - Expat-blog Team

Gordon Barlow wrote:

I think many people take their political leaders as their moral guides.

I sincerely hope that's not true.

wjwoodward wrote:

For example, I was born and raised in Canada and we have 'relatively' honest politicians and honest dedicated police we can trust.

I'm from Minnesota.  We elected Jesse Ventura, Michele Bachmann and Al Franken.

I think I'm in trouble.