Getting Mugged Alone
Don’t expect help in an atomized, low-trust society
Another Good Samaritan was arrested in New York for intervening against a violent hobo. John Rote witnessed a man attacking a woman on the subway. He yelled at the vagrant to stop, before pulling out a gun and firing warning shots. The shots scared the assailant away, saving the woman from a terrible fate.
Rote was rewarded with a criminal warrant and the woman’s ingratitude. The upstanding citizen was charged with criminal possession of a weapon, criminal possession of a firearm, reckless endangerment and menacing. Police admit that Rote was not trying to shoot at the assailant; he only fired to frighten the man away. Yet, he was still punished for his good deed.
But the worst result may be the response from the damsel-in-distress. The unnamed 40-year-old woman criticized Rote for using a gun to rescue her. She told the New York Post she felt “pure terror” as the vagrant assaulted her, but that didn’t ditch her aversion to the violence that stopped the attack.
“In this case the man risked a lot to protect me, his safety, and the safety of other people on the platform. Yes, I do think he is a hero, but I don’t know, I would likely think him a bigger hero if he tried to help me without the gun. In my eyes, the gun is a little extreme. It was a very dangerous situation, anything could have happened.”
No good deed goes unpunished.
This story illustrates why so few people want to intervene to help out their fellow citizens. They know they may wind up in jail and detested by the people they saved. It’s a natural effect of living in an atomized society characterized by low-trust and a powerful government. People recognize the dangers of confronting potential threats that don’t involve them. No one wants to lose everything to do a good deed, especially for someone they don’t know. What does it matter to them if someone else is being menaced? It’s not their problem. They know it’s better to mind their own business and hope police handle the matter.
This story resembles the case of Daniel Penny earlier this year. Penny wrestled a violent black vagrant to the ground on a New York subway car. The assailant was choked out in the process. Penny was arrested and charged with manslaughter for taking down a threat to his fellow passengers. There are some crucial differences between Penny and Rote. Penny didn’t use any weapon to subdue his target. Some of the people he saved publicly defended him and insisted they will testify in his defense. But Penny still pays a hefty price for his good deed. Even if he’s exonerated, he has to pay massive legal bills and have his name ruined as a murderous racist. This act of courage will haunt him for the rest of his life.
It’s common on social media for people to bemoan that strangers don’t intervene when dangerous people threaten the innocent. There are countless numbers of viral videos depicting some hoodlum harassing or assaulting someone in a public space and everyone else looks the other way. Observers can’t believe that the “men without chests” won’t intervene to stop these outrages. Penny and Rote show why few people choose to step up. Intervening means arrest, permanent reputational damage, and potentially may earn you the condemnation of the person you try to help.
And these are the cases where the Good Samaritan came out alive. There’s also the chance that the assailant could inflict serious harm or even take the life of the man who stood up. Last spring, a mob in Oakland beat a white man unconscious for the crime of telling them to stop doing dangerous car tricks on the road. Leftist Ryan Carson was stabbed to death in October for merely telling a violent black youth to chill out. And last week, a mob of black students beat to death a white student who came to the aid of his friend being robbed. Penny and Rote are at least lucky that they didn’t become victims.
There are two important things to remember here. One is that Americans generally have little connection to strangers, especially in a place like New York City. The people on a subway don’t greet each other or see each other as part of a shared community. They’re just random people who may not even speak the same language. It’s better to keep your head down and mind your own business. Public places are where Americans gather as free-floating atoms disconnected from one another. We’re not unified in any shared sense of commonality or community.
It’s part of being an American to be your own little individual. If you need help, you don’t turn to strangers. You turn to the state. And that’s the second thing to understand. For law-abiding citizens, the state is supposed to have a monopoly on violence. Only criminals challenge this monopoly. Good people don’t. If you do challenge it, then you become an outlaw yourself. Rote and Penny learned this the hard way.
As free-floating atoms disconnected with another, we become more dependent on the state to provide things we once relied on others for. This makes for a more docile population that’s less inclined to challenge state authority. Individuals aren’t going to easily bond together with random strangers to assert themselves. A lone man is no threat to the order of things. He knows he can’t deal with crime and other problems by himself. He can’t depend on his neighbors or people on the street for these things either. He looks to the state to manage these problems.
The state cracks down hard on vigilantism because it wants to maintain its monopoly on violence. Our society isn’t likely to produce a lot of vigilantes. Law-abiding citizens know the consequences, and they don’t want to risk everything for strangers who may not even be grateful.
It’s not admirable that people look the other way, but it’s reasonable why they do so. We can complain about this all we want on the platform formerly known as Twitter, but no amount of angry tweets will change the way our society works. We’re supposed to keep our heads down when we see something amiss, especially if the wrongdoer is black. Nobody wants to be turned into the bad guy for doing the right thing. If it isn’t bothering you, why get involved?
That’s the end result of an atomized, low-trust America. We can only change it through radical changes in how we live our lives.