At some point during your college career, you might have heard a classmate or even a professor utter a phrase to the likes of "there is no such thing as right or wrong, just cultural differences."
"How can we be so ethnocentric and judge the actions of another culture based on our own moral prejudices?"
The 18 people in China that walked by the injured 2-year-old girl Yue Yue, lying in the middle of a street after being run over by two vans, are all morally reprehensible. Their cultural identity doesn't matter.
We understand that accidents happen. The two drivers of the van should certainly be held responsible for running over the poor girl. But their actions pale in comparison to the disgusting behavior of those who walked right past her.
The surveillance footage captured a man on a bike who, after noticing the girl, slowed down and looked, then continued on his way.
An atrocity like this would never happen in the U.S. There are countless stories of bystanders lifting burning cars off of people involved in accidents.
Sure, we cannot expect that one person has the ability to lift a bus, but if a girl is lying in the street, no one would pass by her without trying to call for help.
We have no background in anthropology, sociology or psychology, so it is hard for us to make assumptions about why this happened.
We can, however, judge this situation as being downright evil on the part of the bystanders. But how can we explain the "why?"
We are often taught that eastern cultures tend to be more collectivist than in western countries. So why did it take the 19 people to see the girl before someone called for help?
To be clear, we aren't saying that Chinese people are inherently evil or that they are worse than Americans. However, there is something wrong with the individuals who were caught on tape walking by Yue Yue.
Blaming this incident on China's economic boom or some sort of newfound "opportunism" or "materialism" in which all morality is suddenly lost seems too simplistic of an explanation.
There has to be more to it than this.
Were people afraid to help her? Were they afraid they would be framed for hurting her, given the surveillance cameras in the area?
According to the U.K. Daily Mail, "high-profile law suits have ended with good Samaritans ordered to pay hefty fines to individuals they sought to help."
Let us hope that Yue Yue, who is currently in a coma, will make it through this terrible situation.
Let us also hope that she will never have to see this sort of behavior in her community again.
