A murder of a young woman in 1964 with 38 witnesses is similar to a book written in 1980, about a civil servant on the frontier dealing with the influences of empire and coming to terms with the relationships between imperialism and the barbarians already occupying the land. How? The bystander effect.

The bystander effect, in short, is the social psychological phenomenon that states that people are less likely to help victims when in the presence of other people. It’s a fascinating concept, and was further researched by John Darley and Bibb Latané, both inspired by the death of Kitty Genovese. The apathy that her 38 neighbors expressed even after hearing her cries for help and subsequent death as a result of inaction was shocking to the public, a horrid reminder of what exactly humanity (or lack thereof) could lead to.

These two scientists proved that in large settings, individuals tend to ignore pleas for help, assured by the assumption that someone else will take the effort and attend to things. In the experiments that these two performed, it was noted that the recognition of something obviously wrong was present in the individual subject, and yet, there remained inaction within the group as a whole.

The same thing can be seen in Waiting for the Barbarians. Readers are introduced to the magistrate, who is obviously experiencing some discomfort at other imperial officers’ treatment of “barbarians”, natives who live free of the empire’s control. And yet, when faced with the opportunity to do the right thing, the magistrate wavers. He claims that it is because he is only a simple servant of the empire – not much can be expected of him, especially when he is in the presence of higher ranked officials like Joll (Coetzee).

We end up judging the magistrate for the course of action he takes – or, if we’re being honest, lack of – and place ourselves on the higher moral ground, because of course we’d do the morally correct thing if we were in that situation, even in defiance of higher powers like the empire. But is that really the case?

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In Rousseau’s The Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, he argues that the inequality experienced in society is borne as a result of the tendency of people to organize themselves into groups. In a setting with large amounts of people – as the population grows, as towns and settlements and entire cities begin to emerge  – Rousseau claims that it is the tendency of men to attribute value towards attention and receiving it; this same distribution has slowly shifted the population towards a point-value system, one that gives merit to individuals that are noticed more, versus those that aren’t. With this phenomenon, humans begin to stray away from their mores and start to value the opinions of others, considering these values other people give them a crucial component of their own wellbeing (Rousseau, 73).

These social structures are so rigid that the individuals who are naturally more skilled oftentimes have a higher success rate, thus gaining more social mobility. In short, it’s easier for the privileged to make their way to the top and to stay there while they’re at it.

The basis is this: the more an individual can do for a society, the higher value they pose to others. It is this social construct that still pervades our world today, prevalent even from a young age. Growing up, it feels as if we’re constantly looking forward and at the future rather than staying in the moment and enjoying what’s coming at us, right as it hits us. Higher education is a concept that’s always been looming in the distance, hovering ominously above us, not only in the sense that it’s our ticket out of our social standings (the “skills” Rousseau discusses), but in the sense that it will give us stability.

We focus on the end results far more often than we should. It becomes clinical almost, where we “… consider college more an investment than a time of academic and personal exploration” (Koeppel), which (in my opinion) defeats the freedoms of higher education, which is a powerful tool that isn’t being used to the best of its ability. College ends up being just a stepping stone to get to a place we think we want for ourselves based on the qualities other people consider successful.

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Defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the practices, customs, or aesthetics of one social or ethnic group by members of another (typically dominant) community or society, cultural appropriation is a murky topic many often choose not to touch, for fear of stepping on the wrong toes. It has been a hot topic as of late in our society, invoking a lot of confusion, inflammatory argumentation, and conflict when brought up in many conversations, whether informal or academic in nature.

Linguistic appropriation and reclamation in particular, which I believe is a specific aspect of cultural appropriation, has become a particularly championed concern in today’s society. The power struggles/relationships between minorities and those more privileged that have been in play through the decades have created this sort of divisional “us vs. them” mindset that many believe dictate how we should act, giving certain groups the rights to monitor or check individuals who they believe don’t have those rights solely based on the fact that they do not belong to the same communities.

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