The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

I don't know how many Ubahn stations passed before we came to Schottentor--our station, the university station. At this point in time, Schottentor was the second-to-last station on the U2 line. That particular line has since been extended. We all sat there staring. Some were visibly disturbed. One older gentleman kept saying that the collapsed man was drunk.

"Are you doing to do something?" Gretchen asked me. The question angered me. Why shouldn't she do something? Why should it be me? Her German was much better than mine, afterall. She should get the guy help. Why can't one of these other people do something for that matter. They all clearly speak German better than either of us.

"He's just drunk." I responded. I didn't know this, but it's what the old man kept saying and it was the explanation I most wanted to believe because, in my culture-stressed thinking, this somehow absolved me from intervening, from helping. If he's just drunk, then it's ok to let him sit there with a head injury, right?

Gretchen was mad at me for evading the collapsed man. But, I think she was probably doing the same thing by making it my responsibility to do something. The old man kept saying the guy was just drunk and everyone else just stared at the guy. I wasn't convinced the man was drunk. In fact, I don't think I ever really believed that, though this was by no means an explanation without any plausibility, it was just the explanation that made my nonintervention seem the least despicable. I don't think my inability to help was simply due to Diffusion of Responsibility or Bystander Effect or whatever. I know that it had a lot to do with culture stress and when a person is dealing with culture stress he or she just acts differently, sometimes in ways you regret. Maybe the culture stress made me more susceptible to diffusion of responsibility?

We pulled into the Schottentor station and exited the ubahn to go to our German lesson, both of us upset at the other about the collapsed man. I think we both wanted to help but felt inadequate to help. Others acted just as we did: they stared, maybe they judged, then they exited the ubahn. On the station platform where two metro transit officials. I like to think that I would have spoken with these two people concerning the man we left laying on the floor of the ubahn, but as I type this, I can't really say that was my intention. At this point, it's hard to say. I was probably upset that they where there at all because it presented me with another dilemma through which I had to cope. I didn't want to have that confrontation of trying to explain the situation to these two metro transit officials because my German was so bad, or so I thought.

Fortunately, before I had to decide whether or not I was going to talk to the metro transit officials, two women who had exited the ubahn in front of us told them about the collapsed man and I was grateful that I didn't have to do it and that the man was going to get help. Of course, I never found out what had happened to him or what came of him, but I think of him from time to time and how I wanted to agree with the old man: he was just drunk.

I hate labels. I think all labels are simplification. I think simplification is a dehumanizing act. If could I could sum up this man with this single label (i.e., "Drunk") then I could strip him of any merit by which he might deserve my help. It makes me wonder about Kitty. What did people say when they heard her screaming? What would have I said?