In Theory: Video of pedestrian’s death has some Chinese citizens questioning their ‘moral bottom line’

Many Chinese citizens are questioning their nation’s public morality after the release of a gruesome and fatal video of a traffic accident.

In the video, a young woman is struck by a speeding taxi. The woman lies on the ground in the busy intersection for a full minute before an SUV is seen running her over. Meanwhile, more than 40 pedestrians and drivers pass by the injured woman without offering help.

The two drivers who hit the 24-year-old woman were held under police investigation, the Associated Press reports. After the video made its rounds in Chinese social media, however, many have been outraged by the bystanders who did not come to her aid, as it highlights a common complaint among citizens that the nation has gone morally bankrupt.

“It’s a problem with the entire country: Our moral bottom line has fallen so low,” Tian You, a novelist, told the AP.

Q. What are your thoughts about the controversy in China? Have you ever felt that America has “lost its way?”

First, I question the morality of publicly rebroadcasting the incident. I believe it’s disrespectful to the woman who was killed and disrespectful to her family as well. Certainly video footage is a powerful way to generate a response, but the means does not justify the ends. The message of the gospel involves the violent death of God’s Son Jesus Christ. In his sovereignty and omnipotence God could have chosen to communicate this message in any way he chose, but he chose to record it in written words. Words were enough. The worldwide, life-changing results validate his choice.

Could this incident have happened in America? Probably in many but not all places. In my opinion America is in the process of losing its way, but the evidence isn’t all in our streets. We have lost respect for life in the womb, for the sanctity of marriage and even for the principle of absolute truth. We have seen a fundamental turning away from God which is the root of uncaring, immoral and selfish acts in every form in every nation.

Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank

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The tragedy in China was shown on U.S. television or else we probably would not have heard about it.

I would be aghast at the lack of consideration of human life there, except that hit-and-run stories are a mainstay of the nightly news.

Has America “lost its way?” Yes!

When did it happen? It happened many years ago with the death of a woman named Catherine Susan (Kitty) Genovese in Queens. She was stabbed to death while people in the same apartment house heard her screams, watched and did nothing.

Then, in 1964, a neighbor’s life became unimportant. Staying away from saving human life became important. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” was replaced by, “a time to keep silent … and a time to hate.”

Unfortunately, America has found its way. It is the way of selfishness, greed and lack of caring for others. Race, creed, national origin or sexual orientation do not matter. Someone in America wants you “Outta my way.”

In memory of Father O’Malley, may we turn “Outta my way,” into “Come our nurturing and loving God’s way.”

Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank

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China has a population of over 1.3 billion, more than three times as large as that of the United States. It is meaningless to generalize about the morals or behavior of an entire society based on one, or even several, reported incidents.

An infamous 1964 event in New York City was the brutal rape and murder of Kitty Genovese, reportedly witnessed by 38 people who stood by and did nothing. Actually six people saw parts of the event, at least two who called the police, and one who stayed with the victim — at great risk to herself since it was not known if the murderer remained on the scene — and held Genovese in her arms, comforting her as she died. The police, having failed to respond to the neighbors’ calls for help, then released the wildly exaggerated yet incomplete account of the horrendous incident.

Among negative stories of unfeeling human behavior, we also read of people putting themselves at great risk to save others. Ordinary citizens jump down onto subway tracks to rescue total strangers; one man saved another guy by lying down on top of him in the small space between the tracks, keeping his flailing limbs from getting under the wheels as the train passed safely over them both.

Not to let the witnesses of the Zhumadian accident off the hook, but the drivers of both the taxi and the SUV have been arrested, and the incident is being investigated. Corruption and fraud in the public and private sectors of China are known to be problems there.

Individuals and groups do lose their way, but it is no help to condemn an entire people as morally bankrupt.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose

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I think by and large, Americans think it American to jump in and help. I’ll take the leap and say it’s part of our Christian underpinnings that prompt our knee-jerk call to action when kids fall in pools, when old ladies nearly walk into oncoming traffic and when someone rolls over in a car and it catches fire. We relish these human-interest stories of salvation and what has come to be called Good Samaritanism. That term derives from a parable Christ told in Luke, chapter 10, about a foreign fellow coming across one of Israel’s own and seeing that he has been mugged. But the Samaritan’s part comes only after two previous countrymen, men of religious prominence, walked around the injured national and ignored his plight. Who is the hero in the story? The foreign man who helped, while the two passersby disgust us all.

Chinese sociologist, Ma Ai, said that, “In the West, law, faith and morality are a three-legged stool … we don’t have religion and a new moral system has not established after China transformed away from a traditional, collectivist society.” So in China, atheistic policies and superstitious folk religion are what govern people’s actions, and they haven’t a leg to stand on. The Chinese culture has also gotten very me-centric and success focused, and whatever doesn’t fit within those takes a far back seat. The Chinese are feeling the tension, and hopefully things will change for the better there. As for the rest of us, we are mortified by inactive bystanders, and we even judge those who capture such things on video because we wonder why the camera wasn’t set down and efforts made to help.

The worry I have is that America is going in a direction from which China is trying to recover. Our culture is abandoning our faith heritage and going the way of China with its drive to get ahead and not be be hampered by the needs of others. After all, who says anyone needs to help others, or be concerned about others, or do anything for others, except maybe cultural whim, unless God has said something, and he has: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Luke, chapter 10).

Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga