It’s just a normal day at school. You’re walking down the hall on your way to lunch when you hear laughing from around the corner. You decide to take a detour and investigate. As you round the corner, you see some of your peers picking on a younger student and you see others just watching. “Why isn’t anyone helping?”, you ask yourself as you watch the scene unfold before you. No one is helping or intervening. What do you do? Bystanders have a responsibility to intervene, because, intervening can save a life, help improve the lives of others, and improve your reputation. First of all, yes, saving a life isn’t going to happen all the time, but it can still happen. An example of this is in the Egyptian fantasy fiction, The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. In the story, Bes (the dwarf God) intervened in a battle between Nekhbet (Goddess of Vultures) and Babi (God of Baboons). Bes was able to stop Nekhbet and Babi and save Sadie and her two friends Liz and Emma. If he never intervened Sadie, Emma and Liz would all most likely be dead. Secondly, people's lives are roller coasters that never end. Some people’s lives are well while others aren’t so well. Intervening in a problem can help improve the lives of others, either in a small way or a major way. In the show “What would you do?”, people are put given a situation where something bad is happening. It could be anything from domestic abuse to someone being attacked on the street. In one episode, two actors posed as a couple where the boyfriend was being abusive and controlling towards his girlfriend. They were set in a coffee shop to see how many people would actually intervene. Many people, men, and women intervened in the relationship, and told the girl things such as “You are too good for him”, “You deserve someone much better” and “you are strong enough to not let a boy treat you like that”. Even though the relationship and everything was staged, stepping in like these people did, can help someone and getting someone to leave a bad situation can improve their lives. Finally, reputation is something we all want to keep high and it's something very important to us, teens and adults, alike. An example of someone’s reputation being increased after intervening is in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter from. Birmingham Jail”. In his letter, he goes to talk about how unjust the whites were being towards the blacks and his views on the whole segregation situation. As a matter of fact, in his letter, King says “You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first, I was rather disappointed that my fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those as an extremist” This may seem like a bad thing, but really this improved King’s reputation in a way many people wouldn’t expect. Yes, getting involved in a situation has a possible chance of making the situation worse and cause more problems for everyone else around, but making it worse could actually be a good thing. All the commotion from the situation could draw more attention to it and allow authorities to get involved and stop the problem at hand. In the Greek Mythology, Antigone, the two main brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, fought each other for the throne and killed each other in a battle. Eteocles was buried with honor and Polyneices was left to rot in the field where he fought. The new king, Creon, passed a law that made it so anyone who buried Polyneices would be killed. Antigone didn’t agree with the law Creon set and decided she would be the one to bury her brother and give him honor. This made Creon very mad and instead of killing her, he sent Antigone away and banished her. The people were very mad at Creon for going against his own set law and they agreed with Antigone after seeing how unfair Polyneices was treated. The situation got worse, however, it got better in the end by drawing the attention of the people. This allowed the situation to be stopped and allowed a better ending to come out. Now, this example was a bit extreme, nowadays, people are given a funeral and they are respected. Has there ever been a time in your life where you were faced with a situation where you were a bystander? If so, what did you do? Would have done something else if you were faced with the same exact situation?
