SOCIETY
Is Morality Dead?
An everyday tale of robbery in London
Her name is Saffron. She was eight months pregnant when a robber pushed her over and stole her bag.
It wasn’t nighttime.
It wasn’t even late in the day.
She wasn’t in some lonely spot or dark alleyway, but simply dropping some clothes off at a charity shop in broad daylight.
He wasn’t lurking in the shadows but walking down the high street bold as brass, wearing a bright yellow high-vis vest.
He pushed her to the ground, snatched her handbag and took off as she started screaming for someone to help.
I’d like to report that several passers-by chased him down, but everybody just stood and watched.
While this heavily pregnant woman lay on the ground screaming for helped, people stood around her and stared. But nobody went to her aid.
She struggled to her feet and gave chase, all the time begging for someone to help.
But being so heavily pregnant she couldn’t keep up with her assailant and eventually dropped to her knees, crying “Why won’t anyone help me?”
Finally, someone did step forward to help, an Australian guy over here on holiday.
He found her bag under some bushes. Her cash had been taken but her phone, cards and keys were all still there (thank God).
Her phone was beeping with messages about animal rescues and a BBC interview she was booked to give as a member of the Animal Welfare Party, so when the police arrived she lied and said she was fine, because she had too much to do.
She wasn’t fine, of course: she was badly shaken, as was her faith in humanity, but at least her unborn baby is okay.
But why wouldn’t anyone help her? Is morality dead?
Or are people too scared to get involved?
There’s certainly a lot of knife crime around these days. Guns too.
Are people too frightened for their own safety to help the most vulnerable in our society?
I’ve seen knives pulled on strangers during stupid altercations in the street. I’ve been attacked with weapons myself.
As someone who has practised and studied martial arts and self-defence for much of my life, if I get into an altercation with anyone I assume they are carrying a weapon.
It helps to be aware of this likelihood. It helps me to stay alive.
But it doesn’t stop me from getting involved and helping people when the situation requires it. I don’t believe we should let fear call the shots.
Besides, even though I assume everyone is carrying a weapon, my wife says she never considers this possibility. I’ve seen her run towards trouble without a second thought.
So given that not everyone is a paranoid freak like me, I find it hard to believe that everyone there was just too scared to act.
Maybe it’s something to do with the way we live our day-to-day lives. There are countless studies suggesting that social media, for example, increases our detachment from the real world.
Maybe watching countless dramas happening to other people on YouTube or Twitter has rewired our brains to the point where we don’t know how to be anything other than passive observers, even when real life is happening right in front of us.
Either way, it seems to me that morality must be based on our actions, and not just on our beliefs. If we are truly to consider ourselves moral agents, we cannot simply be passive observers of heinous acts. We must take a stand.
If, as a society, we can continue to simply stand by and watch as the most vulnerable among us are assaulted, abused and even killed, then perhaps, after all, morality is well and truly dead.
