being callous , uncaring or egotistical . It is true that cultural differences exist in many aspects of human behavior , and many of these differences are not trivial . But in the Chinese incident , in which the small child was gravely injured before someone finally carried her away , it would be too facile to think that apathy in the face of others ' suffering is a signature of the local culture . First , the public outcry and outrage within China was quite the same as what one would see in other countries . Second , there have been , of course , similar cases in other countries . Indeed , there was the torture and murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens , New York , in a 1964 street attack . Early reports , which may not have been entirely accurate , indicated that many people listened to or watched the attack and did nothing to stop it , and so a media blitz followed . Commentators asked : What is wrong with New York City , what is wrong with these times , and what is wrong with the particular neighborhood ? Outrage in China
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A security camera video of a toddler being run over twice on a street in China has swept across the Web in recent days and has drawn a chorus of horrified denunciations . How , we wonder , could so many passers-by have so callously ignored the girl 's plight ? As humans , we are horrified when we learn that a person in distress is not helped , even when , as in this case , many potential helpers are present . Our horror increases if the person is victimized in a particularly vicious or careless way by fellow human beings . Our horror is further heightened when we learn that the victim is helpless and the kind of person who normally stimulates our instinct to aid and protect . Our spontaneous reaction is to say : `` Had I been there , I would have helped ; what is wrong with these people ? '' If an incident occurs in a foreign country or culture , it is easy -- maybe tempting , as we grapple with something so baffling -- to conclude that the particular culture is to blame , that it is