The greatest of all evils...?

Question

Someone famous once said that true evil is not when bad men do bad things, but when it is when good men do nothing. Or something of that nature. I have always strong advocat of that saying, and have lived trying to help my fellow man, i guess thats why i get on here. But I what i dont understand is how good men can sit and whatch the world go bye and not help try to make it better. Tonight, near my nieghborhood, the was an explosion... you could see smoke and flames from my house. And from the sound of it, i was told by my family, that it might have been a plane crashing. Which makes sense because the is an airfield near by. Now my first instinct was and still is to go help. Now mind you i am an ex-soldier trained in first aid and and burn injuries, so i think i could be of some aid til help arrived. My family on the other hand was content to be on lookers and willing to wiat for the news to find out what happened... they have been this way my whole life. I just dont understand how...

anyone can live this way??? And my family no less. If it is because they were raised to be that way, why am i (someone raised to hide my head) so different?? It makes me angery to know my family is unwilling to help lift a finger to help the world if it doesnt effect them directly. How do i cope w/ my anger, cuz i really want to go give them a piece of my mind!!! Oh by the way it was appearently a gas line explosion... not that really changes anything for me.

the reason i am stil here instead of where i SHOULD be is that it would cause a huge fight between me and my parents.... It always does when i try to help in potnetialy dangerous situations.

The point of my question is not how do i help the world around me, though i do appreciate the imput to that endevor. The true point of my question is how are people content to sit and watch the world go by them and not go anything to help it be a better place?

Answer 1

If you were in the military, YOU HAD TRAINING. Of course you are going to want to use what you know. That is natural.

Your expectations for your family, however, may not be realistic. So give your family a break.

It's easy to help when you know what to do. When you go into a situation where you are clearly out of your element, or you don't have training to respond, you end up wandering, blindly looking for a place to lend a hand, and you run a solid risk of getting in the way of the trained people that know what they are supposed to do in emergency situations.

IF you are angry because you could be doing more and your presence can help, help. If not, be gracious.

But either way, remember that if a member of your family is injured or killed because they had to appease you in a situation that they weren't ready for, it won't serve anyone.

Live well

***Added***
People help all the time! Some of the work is simply not in your visual span... non-profits and banks set up accounts for people in need, volunteers are unrecognized but still in the background, your local dispatchers rarely ever show up on a scene, and those in charge of the big picture, who organize relief and emergency events are even contributing.

We use our strengths because they are what we are trained to do. Again, please be generous with your family, even when their strengths aren't yours.

Answer 2

I understand what you are saying. I am the same way I see a wrong and I want to right it. My spouse (a minister as an occupation) says don't get involved, or you can't fix the world. If more people got involved perhaps there might be less problems. It sounds like you need to be in a helps profession there are many needs out there.

Answer 3

Here is how to solve this.

Find a government agency where you can become a volunteer. Such as the fire department, Red Cross, etc. Then you will receive necessary IDENTIFICATION where, when you go to the explosion, accident, or what ever, you will be WELCOMED by the authorities, who are also rushing to the site, to help in any way you can.

NO ID, and they will tell you to get "the hell out of Dodge," you will NOT be welcome, no matter how much you can help.

Sorry, but people who are employed to rescue people, do NOT like people volunteering to help, unless they can prove they are CERTIFIED to help.

AS for your parents. Their primary job is to protect their child. They were worried about YOU. Be kind to them.

Answer 4

Obviously, this is not an easy question. There are no simple or clear cut answers as to why some people are more inclined to moral behavior than others, with regards to helping their fellow man. I can only offer my personal thoughts on the matter; take from it whatever is helpful to you.

There are people who would say that some people are born good and others bad. I tend to think of the ability to care for other people as just a special kind of intelligence that some people have more of, and some people have less of.

Think of it this way. If you have a two-year-old child and that child pulls a the tail of your puppy, the two-year-old obviously isn't really a bad person -- he just doesn't understand what he's doing. Partially this is because he hasn't had enough experience with the world yet, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that he can't put himself in the puppy's place and imagine what it would be like if HE was a dog, and someone was pulling HIS tail. The same two-year-old probably wouldn't care very much if you told him that his best friend lost his favorite toy, even if he knows how bad it feels to lose a favorite toy. He isn't intellectually mature enough to be able imagine what it would be like to be someone other than himself.

It takes a certain capacity for abstract thought to understand that when bad things happen to other people, they feel as bad for that person as they do do when it happens to you. As we get older and intellectually mature, obviously we come to understand that other people experience the same feelings we do in the same way that we do. Some people, however, still lack the ability, even as adults, to truly *vividly imagine* what it's like to be in another person's shoes. It's easier to care about people we're close to, like our friends and lovers and family. To really, honestly care about strangers in a plane crash, for example, is harder. To really feel sadness for those strangers takes a capacity for imagination some people may simply lack.

When it comes down to it, I honestly think most people know what the right thing to do is in cases like the one you describe. The problem is fully understanding *how* right it is, ie, understanding the importance and weight of the matter. As another example, most Americans do not typically engage in product boycotts even when they believe a corporation is doing something truly evil, like employing child labor under sweatshop conditions. It's harder to get upset over the suffering of others we've never met, living on the other side of the globe, in a culture that is alien to us, even if we understand that in theory exploiting other human beings is wrong. It takes the ability to truly, vividly *imagine* the suffering of others to properly "weight" the suffering of 8-year-old factory workers in Indonesia against our own desire to have the brand of sneakers that we like best and decide in favor of doing the right thing. Again, it's a question of ability to imagine and empathise.

I'm not sure if any of this helps you. I do know, one can only really control their own behavior at the end of the day. Obviiously, it's good to try and influence others to do the right thing when you can, but for your own sanity, it's probably best to keep in mind that there are some people who you won't be able to change, because the capacity for moral behavior may not be equal in everyone.

Answer 5

I agree that it is immoral to do nothing when you witness injustice or suffering. I make that mistake sometimes.
A few years ago I was in a bad car accident and was knocked unconscious and bleeding, with a severe concussion, and shattered jaw. I was in a canyon with my brother and a friend. My friend was trapped in the truck and I was screwed up. Luckily my brother was okay so he tried to get someone to help him get me out of the canyon and to a hospital. He tried flagging down cars to get help and he said about 20 cars passed him (which takes a while in a Phantom Canyon) before he finally forced someone to stop by jumping in front of their vehicle.
About a year later I was healed up and driving when me and my brother passed someone on the highway who was broken down. My brother said we should stop and help them out and I just kept on driving. I said I’ll call the highway patrol and get them to come out. My brother was so hurt and mad that I didn’t stop and I realized he was right. It was a real eye opener for me.

Answer 6

you said you are an ex-souldeir right,
someone who is trained to help others, on the other hand. what kind of training did the rest of your family get...

GOOD MEN WHO CAN DO GOOD.PART OF THE GOOD THE DO IS TO TEACH THOSE WHO SIT BY, ''EQUIPING THEM'' WITH THE KNOLEDG AND THE HOW. HANCE THEY WILL SIT BY NO LONGER.

Answer 7

All of this corresponds to Johnny Carson's Maxim. -No good deed shall go unpunished-. Explains everything.

Answer 8

you should be at the crash site n stead of on the computer