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While neither witness knew the boys in question as the rats in the study did, the Italian Mama has to wonder why these men did not come to the rescue of those children or the ones who allegedly came after them. David Brooks, author and columnist for the New York Times, offers a provocative answer to this question in his column "Let's All Feel Superior." In it he describes what psychologists call the "Normalcy Bias," which prevents some people from processing disturbing events they witness or experience. "Motivated Blindness" causes some people to completely overlook things that are not in their interest to see. They simply "shut down and pretend everything is normal." And still others will choose to not look at things that make them uncomfortable.
These survival mechanisms do not excuse the apparent negligence of the many people who knew about what Jerry Sandusky was seen doing in the shower to ten-year-old boys, but they do help to explain how grown men with good reputations and honorable records could ignore the victimization of young boys. Other explanations leap to mind as well - fear of reprisals from superiors; devotion to a football program whose pristine reputation must be protected at all cost; concern for the reputation of an esteemed university whose reputation rests at least in large part on the success of its football program. We may never know what went through the hearts and minds of the people who knew what was going on and yet did nothing to help.
But because we are thinking beings, having the knowledge that we do about the human psyche and the ways in which the mind works to protect itself and those around it, should make us able to realize when our gut instincts will prevent us from protecting innocents and erode the social fabric. How many times has your fight or flight instinct inspired you to punch someone who posed a threat but you didn't because your more rational side took control, resulting in a heated discussion instead of a fistfight? That's what thinking people do: they recognize when their survival instincts will do more harm than good and use their superior intellects to resist them. Surely we can act with at least as much social responsibility as rats.
I love this. I wish we were as responsible as dirty old rats! Wow!
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