Selfishness in Today's Society
Not selfless enough
Selfishness, putting ourselves in front of others, seems to be the norm nowadays. The simple things matter. Offering your seat to an elderly person, answering door-to-door salesman, saying please and thank-you. The list goes on. A new TV Show called “What Would You Do” is a programme about social experiments that they conduct public with hidden cameras. It usually involves their actors playing the victim in distress to see how people react. The number of people that ignore the victim is an utter disgrace. An issue in today’s society that deserves discussion.
There once was a time (as hard as it is to believe for you youngsters) that people put their own lives at risk to help others. Over 400,000 Australian men volunteered in World War 1 and 156,000 of those men died or were wounded. Last Thursday, we celebrated Anzac Day. Even though many people attended the dawn services, not as many as you would expect did. What were they busy doing that was so important? Another hour sleep? or more likely, they simply just didn’t care for all the men and women that died for them.
But it’s not about the lack of people attending dawn services. People being selfish can be from simple things to life threatening. For an example, in the show “What Would You Do” the show used a young actress in the street and a man in the street with her. The scenario that the actors portrayed was that the young girl was being abducted by the man. The young girl started screaming that this man wasn’t her dad and begging for him to let her go. The man also started yelling things such as “Get in my car!” and “You’re parents won’t know!” making it obvious to the public that she was being abducted. The scene was done over and over again throughout the day. Out of those people a shocking number of only 10% stopped to help then girl. Hundreds of people walked past the scene, stopped stared and continued walking. Bill Stanton, social scientist expert says “The more people there
Selfishness, putting ourselves in front of others, seems to be the norm nowadays. The simple things matter. Offering your seat to an elderly person, answering door-to-door salesman, saying please and thank-you. The list goes on. A new TV Show called “What Would You Do” is a programme about social experiments that they conduct public with hidden cameras. It usually involves their actors playing the victim in distress to see how people react. The number of people that ignore the victim is an utter disgrace. An issue in today’s society that deserves discussion.
There once was a time (as hard as it is to believe for you youngsters) that people put their own lives at risk to help others. Over 400,000 Australian men volunteered in World War 1 and 156,000 of those men died or were wounded. Last Thursday, we celebrated Anzac Day. Even though many people attended the dawn services, not as many as you would expect did. What were they busy doing that was so important? Another hour sleep? or more likely, they simply just didn’t care for all the men and women that died for them.
But it’s not about the lack of people attending dawn services. People being selfish can be from simple things to life threatening. For an example, in the show “What Would You Do” the show used a young actress in the street and a man in the street with her. The scenario that the actors portrayed was that the young girl was being abducted by the man. The young girl started screaming that this man wasn’t her dad and begging for him to let her go. The man also started yelling things such as “Get in my car!” and “You’re parents won’t know!” making it obvious to the public that she was being abducted. The scene was done over and over again throughout the day. Out of those people a shocking number of only 10% stopped to help then girl. Hundreds of people walked past the scene, stopped stared and continued walking. Bill Stanton, social scientist expert says “The more people there