The “good Samaritan,” for those who are unfamiliar with the tale, was a person who stopped to help—unlike the Seinfeld characters who watched, but did not help in the plot of the last two episodes of the series.
We all know that it isn’t just indifference to the pain of others that causes some of us to look the other way. In a super litigious society, one can never know how “helping” can become a serious liability, costing one not just money, but also reputation—and sometimes life.
Being a good Samaritan was never easy, but being one in today’s drug-infused and compunctionless society begs caution. In 2021 Linda Robinson was killed after she stopped to help George Faile and Amber Harris, both high on meth. * I have no doubt that you have heard similar stories about those who went to aid others only to become victims like Linda.
Samaritanism for Fun and Profit
Now Samaritanism takes on a new and dark twist: Videoing addicts wallowing in the stupor of tranq, or xylazine, in North Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. *** Tranq is a sedative that disables its human users, making them incapable of rational consent to being videoed by people who then upload their work onto TikTok channels they have monetized. Under the guise of wanting to show the world the dangers of the drug, those who video simply profit from the Schadenfreude of those who might well be described as social media addicts.
What Makes Us Look without Helping?
Fess up! You’ve rubbernecked as you’ve driven past a wreck with ambulances and police cars still on the scene. What motivated your rubbernecking?
Were I a cognitive psychologist, I might ascribe the morbid curiosity associated with rubbernecking as a juxtaposition of empathy and fear: Empathy for the victims and fear for oneself, that is, fear that the same fate might await the rubbernecker who has so far escaped such tragic events. This latter emotion generates adrenalin and maybe activity in mirror neurons. Certainly, it seems to be related to our mutualism. Any of us can become victims, making us ask, “What if…?” And that question we follow with various hypothetical scenarios in which we star in survival or heroic mode.
Uploading videos of others suffering from tranq and other drugs reveals an underlying crassness, a willingness to debase others and oneself for profit. Taking those videos is little different from robbing the dead of their effects because the videographer steals the dignity and reputation of the zombie-state addict. You know that now repeated expression, “No animals were harmed in the shooting of this movie”? Now, TikTok videographers can say, “No humans were helped in the shooting of this video.”
The Kensington videographers remind me of a Sam Kinison skit I’ve related elsewhere. News cameramen filming Ethiopian child victims of drought and famine in the early 1980s drove the late comic to ask, “How come the film crew didn’t just give the kid a sandwich? How come you never see that? What are they afraid of—that it would spoil the shot?”
There’s Much in Humanity That Isn’t Likable
Two to three hundred millennia of torture and cruelty through many wars and conquests, domestic abuses, and teenage bullying reveal a not-very likable species. Sure, we’re cute when we are infants, then much less so when we are in our “terrible twos,” and almost universally obnoxious when we are teens. And then, as adults, we find ourselves in the midst of biases and self-aggrandizement that devalue the lives of others.
Wow! Isn’t that pessimistic? Probably.
Those Truly Good Samaritans
But among us are people like the late Linda Robinson, people who are willing to stop to help. I think, also, of Amy Biehl, a Fulbright Scholar and anti-Apartheid activist who was killed in South Africa by the very people she tried to support in 1993. ****
Those who lost their lives in the service of others are real examples of Samaritanism at its finest, action that Charles Dickens encapsulated at the end of A Tale of Two Cities when Sydney Carton says:
“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
That well known passage makes the novel’s ending a tear-jerker, but it should be read in the context of another passage Dickens writes into the book:
“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing.”
So numerous are self-sacrificing humans that the hippocampus is stressed to remember recent Samaritans, and ensuing generations rarely read about them, save for individuals like Mother Teresa. Samaritanism persists even in this crass contemporary world, even under the pressure of profit and self-aggrandizement, both of which are driven by social media. And that persistence breeds hope that every generation will birth and nurture those who will echo those words of Carton—albeit in melodramatic passages—that Dickens wrote into his novel.
One can only hope that in every rubbernecker and in every indifferent and unsympathetic individual videographer there lies a seed of empathy that will drive them to place the welfare of those in need above any self-centered tendencies and insecurities.
From St. Paul’s writings through those of more modern authors, we get the expression, “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” words ascribed to various sources. That expression isn’t, however, action. Just recognizing that others are victims of some accident or human cruelty is just the beginning of Samaritanism; its fulfillment comes only with help and not camerawork.
*https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/chester-county-deputies-search-damaged-van-after-body-found-side-road/5IOCVFMXXZFVJFEKTZAVACX57Q/
**https://countylocalnews.com/article1/2023/12/17/tragic-accident-two-good-samaritans-struck-killed-in-raleigh-while-assisting-crash-victims/ and https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/latrell-sanders-dui-high-speed-crash-good-samaritan-killed-i395-baltimore/ and https://www.foxnews.com/us/good-samaritan-killed-helping-crash-victim-arizona-worst-case-scenario and https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-good-samaritans-die-from-electrical-shock-while-aiding-crash-victim and other stories too numerous to list.
***https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/17/tranq-tourism-tiktok-philadelphia-drug-use-xylazine
****https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl
We all know that it isn’t just indifference to the pain of others that causes some of us to look the other way. In a super litigious society, one can never know how “helping” can become a serious liability, costing one not just money, but also reputation—and sometimes life.
Being a good Samaritan was never easy, but being one in today’s drug-infused and compunctionless society begs caution. In 2021 Linda Robinson was killed after she stopped to help George Faile and Amber Harris, both high on meth. * I have no doubt that you have heard similar stories about those who went to aid others only to become victims like Linda.
Samaritanism for Fun and Profit
Now Samaritanism takes on a new and dark twist: Videoing addicts wallowing in the stupor of tranq, or xylazine, in North Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood. *** Tranq is a sedative that disables its human users, making them incapable of rational consent to being videoed by people who then upload their work onto TikTok channels they have monetized. Under the guise of wanting to show the world the dangers of the drug, those who video simply profit from the Schadenfreude of those who might well be described as social media addicts.
What Makes Us Look without Helping?
Fess up! You’ve rubbernecked as you’ve driven past a wreck with ambulances and police cars still on the scene. What motivated your rubbernecking?
Were I a cognitive psychologist, I might ascribe the morbid curiosity associated with rubbernecking as a juxtaposition of empathy and fear: Empathy for the victims and fear for oneself, that is, fear that the same fate might await the rubbernecker who has so far escaped such tragic events. This latter emotion generates adrenalin and maybe activity in mirror neurons. Certainly, it seems to be related to our mutualism. Any of us can become victims, making us ask, “What if…?” And that question we follow with various hypothetical scenarios in which we star in survival or heroic mode.
Uploading videos of others suffering from tranq and other drugs reveals an underlying crassness, a willingness to debase others and oneself for profit. Taking those videos is little different from robbing the dead of their effects because the videographer steals the dignity and reputation of the zombie-state addict. You know that now repeated expression, “No animals were harmed in the shooting of this movie”? Now, TikTok videographers can say, “No humans were helped in the shooting of this video.”
The Kensington videographers remind me of a Sam Kinison skit I’ve related elsewhere. News cameramen filming Ethiopian child victims of drought and famine in the early 1980s drove the late comic to ask, “How come the film crew didn’t just give the kid a sandwich? How come you never see that? What are they afraid of—that it would spoil the shot?”
There’s Much in Humanity That Isn’t Likable
Two to three hundred millennia of torture and cruelty through many wars and conquests, domestic abuses, and teenage bullying reveal a not-very likable species. Sure, we’re cute when we are infants, then much less so when we are in our “terrible twos,” and almost universally obnoxious when we are teens. And then, as adults, we find ourselves in the midst of biases and self-aggrandizement that devalue the lives of others.
Wow! Isn’t that pessimistic? Probably.
Those Truly Good Samaritans
But among us are people like the late Linda Robinson, people who are willing to stop to help. I think, also, of Amy Biehl, a Fulbright Scholar and anti-Apartheid activist who was killed in South Africa by the very people she tried to support in 1993. ****
Those who lost their lives in the service of others are real examples of Samaritanism at its finest, action that Charles Dickens encapsulated at the end of A Tale of Two Cities when Sydney Carton says:
“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
That well known passage makes the novel’s ending a tear-jerker, but it should be read in the context of another passage Dickens writes into the book:
“For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing.”
So numerous are self-sacrificing humans that the hippocampus is stressed to remember recent Samaritans, and ensuing generations rarely read about them, save for individuals like Mother Teresa. Samaritanism persists even in this crass contemporary world, even under the pressure of profit and self-aggrandizement, both of which are driven by social media. And that persistence breeds hope that every generation will birth and nurture those who will echo those words of Carton—albeit in melodramatic passages—that Dickens wrote into his novel.
One can only hope that in every rubbernecker and in every indifferent and unsympathetic individual videographer there lies a seed of empathy that will drive them to place the welfare of those in need above any self-centered tendencies and insecurities.
From St. Paul’s writings through those of more modern authors, we get the expression, “There, but for the grace of God, go I,” words ascribed to various sources. That expression isn’t, however, action. Just recognizing that others are victims of some accident or human cruelty is just the beginning of Samaritanism; its fulfillment comes only with help and not camerawork.
*https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/chester-county-deputies-search-damaged-van-after-body-found-side-road/5IOCVFMXXZFVJFEKTZAVACX57Q/
**https://countylocalnews.com/article1/2023/12/17/tragic-accident-two-good-samaritans-struck-killed-in-raleigh-while-assisting-crash-victims/ and https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/latrell-sanders-dui-high-speed-crash-good-samaritan-killed-i395-baltimore/ and https://www.foxnews.com/us/good-samaritan-killed-helping-crash-victim-arizona-worst-case-scenario and https://www.foxnews.com/us/los-angeles-good-samaritans-die-from-electrical-shock-while-aiding-crash-victim and other stories too numerous to list.
***https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/17/tranq-tourism-tiktok-philadelphia-drug-use-xylazine
****https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Biehl
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