Murrow Was Wrong- They Were Not "All Guilty"

In the movie "Good Night and Good Luck", after receiving unjust consequences of the Tydings committee McCarthy hearings, Edward R. Murrow concludes that "We Are All Guilty", including the viewing public. He was wrong.

The movie "Gladiator" could work as a message movie about the senselessness and blood-lust inherent in the crowd, the mob....but to place blame and enmity on the individuals in the general public and in the mob because of a supposed sense of inferiority of intelligence or evil nature is misplaced and incorrect in the cases of the viewers of the proceedings of both the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Tydings Committee McCarthy Hearings.

This is not because there doesn't exist such thing as a "mob psychology", there does, but because of the effect that an individual being in the presence of groups, being in the midst of groups, has on the behaviors and judgments of individuals and there sense of responsibility and urgency. This effect applies to all no matter how intelligent, unless they've been specifically trained.

Irving Janis' book 'Groupthink' applies to smaller group decision making fiascos like the Bay of pigs, jury manipulation, and others because the individuals in these groups aren't stupid at all, but being in a group in effect "makes them stupid" because it affects proper judgment.

Murrow was only partially right in his statement, "we are all responsible". Because of social science- because of demonstrable, provable fact- that's not how it works.

In a study a writer did an article for the Chicago reader entitled "Town without Pity", about the behavior of witnesses of events and why these witnesses don't act to help. He did it in the wake of the NYC jogger rape. Why did all these people watch the rape and do nothing? He wrote about it with the good samaritan story of the bible as a backdrop. Among the conclusions in the action experiments conducted of "people requiring help by observers"- were that 1) the less urgent task the individual observer had the more likely they were to help, 2) the less social standing the victim had, the less likely to help, 3) the higher social standing the possible samaritan had the less likely to help and 4) the more observers of an event there were, the less chance any one individual would act.

The last conclusion came down to the fact that if there are more perceived fellow observers to an event, the less social and individual responsibility the observer feels to act. This applied across the education and social standing spectrum, unless the individual observer had specific training. This is therefore a negative effect that the perception of being in a group has on the normal decision making of the individual with regard to taking action to help. The people aren't stupid, and the people aren't callous and bloodthirsty individuals in their hearts, but the larger group they perceive that they are a part of, the less they WILL act because they think that someone else is already doing it.

So the pain and tragedy experienced by the Huac and Tydings committee victims was real, but the inaction of the viewers wasn't the result of the stupidity and hearts of darkness perceived about the individual members of the general public. The fact that the members of general public didn't react to help was a result of the very dynamic that the invention of the television, and the perception of the single viewer being in a mass group of viewers had on the these individual viewers.

Murrow was wrong about his viewers, they were not "All Guilty".