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This is why the textbook story of Kitty Genovese and of bystander non-intervention (that people fail to help others in need) is so wrong and so dangerous in the conttext of the present pandemic: it undermines the solidarity which has been crucial in getting us thtough the crisis. https://twitter.com/carlsenior1/status/1301921646358466560
First, as classic work by Rachel Manning and @ProfMarkLevine shows, people did not ignore Kittty's plight. When they could see what was happening many inttervened and the attacker ran off. When he returned to kill her, few could see: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-13085-001
Second, recent work by @ProfMarkLevine , using real-life cross national data sets shows that, in fact, the norm tends to be for people to intervene when others are atacked. Non-inervention is the exception rather than the rule: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-30180-001
Third, the reason why the Kittty Genovese myth took hold was related to broader fears in the US society of the 1960s. These were fears of the urban masses, fears about cities where people were anonymous communitiy had broken down, attackers would strike and no-one would help.
It is this same fear of tthe masses which so disastrously misinformed the present pandemic - the notion that community had died, that people would act selfishly and would not observe lockdown (and so lockdown was delayed). The evidence showed otherwise.
People did come together and help. Street level organisation happened everywhere, millions joined mutual aid groups, baked or volunteered for the NHS. And this mutual solidarity was critical in providing the material and emotional support that the state failed to provide
So the story of Kitty Genovese is wrong. The textbooks must change. And, more importantly, we must abandon the pernicious myth of the masses as atomised and indifferent. Community and solidarrity are within our grasp.
