Posted by
glen ropella on
Sep 25, 2012; 6:39pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Faith-tp7580633p7580745.html
Prof David West wrote at 09/22/2012 09:00 AM:
>
> On Thu, Sep 20, 2012, at 10:24 AM, glen wrote:
>
>>
>> Here's an honest and personal question to make the ethics concrete:
>> Should I have intervened?
>>
> clearly a tough question - given the state of society, the prevalence of
> guns and predisposition to use them, and the potential for alcohol or
> other substance abuse - not an easy decision. The "official" response
> is no, report it to someone who has the "authority" to intervene. I
> would have made my silent presence as witness obvious - but would not
> have actively intervened.
FWIW, that's what I did. Since the old jalopy they keep covered in
canvas is only ~ 10 ft from my side door, I'm fairly certain the
daughter, who was hiding behind the piece of junk, saw me standing there
with the door open. I have no idea if the dad saw me.
I also used that trick with a "kid" who was shooting off bottle rockets
in the field behind the house awhile back. (I say "kid" because he
looks about 20 yrs old, but has a similarly young wife and a baby. Say
what you will about hicks, at least we breed young before the
probabilities for things like autism rise too high.) A beefy, bald,
beer-bellied, yahoo elsewhere in the neighborhood began yelling about
how this is his neighborhood and if they don't stop shooting fireworks,
he was gonna come out there and break the kid's back. Yaddayaddayadda.
So, I went and stood next to them without saying anything. They all
gradually quieted down and dispersed.
It's almost like the mere fact that there was another human (as opposed
to a camera) witnessing their silliness was enough of an intervention to
re-orient their behaviors.
That goes _directly_ back to the point that population density is
probably the critical variable in discussions of how others raise their
kids.
--
glen
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