Author: Don McMinn

For the past 12 years I’ve led groups of friends on annual, international trips. We’ve been to Paris, London, Europe, the Mediterranean, Baltic States, Russia, Israel, Peru, and North Africa. We’ve never had a malfunction or bad experience; just memorable, life-enhancing moments.

Please join me this fall 2022, on a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the cradle of Western civilization. We’ll visit Rome,  Athens,  Istanbul, Ephesus, three Greek Isles and Naples, Italy. 

This month, I’m hosting two virtual information meetings on Zoom.

Thursday, March 17 at 6:00 p.m.
Thursday, March 24 at 6:00 p.m.

During the meeting, we’ll discuss the itinerary and logistics and I’ll answer all your questions.

If you want to participate, just email me at [email protected] and I’ll send you an invitation. Or call me at 214.783.4414.

Here’s a brochure about the trip. Travel with Friends – 2022-Brochure

Bull session: an informal discursive group discussion; a conversation among a small group of people

I long for a setting in which friends can explore half-baked thoughts, doubts, and questions with no fear of being judged, betrayed, or retaliated against. A conversation that is process-driven rather than end-directed; the aim isn’t to convince anyone to change their view or to reach a consensus, but simply to hear and value the range of perspectives.

Harry Frankfurt (professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University) calls this type of conversation a bull session. He writes:

“The characteristic topics of a bull session have to do with very personal and emotion-laden aspects of life—for instance, religion, politics, or sex. People are generally reluctant to speak altogether openly about these topics if they expect that they might be taken too seriously. What tends to go on in a bull session is that the participants try out various thoughts and attitudes in order to see how it feels to hear themselves saying such things and in order to discover how others respond, without its being assumed that they are committed to what they say: it is understood by everyone in a bull session that the statements people make do not necessarily reveal what they really believe or how they really feel. The main point is to make possible a high level of candor and an experimental or adventuresome approach to the subjects under discussion.

“Each of the contributors to a bull session relies, in other words, upon a general recognition that what he expresses or says is not to be understood as being what he means wholeheartedly or believes unequivocally to be true. The purpose of the conversation is not to communicate beliefs. Accordingly, the usual assumptions about the connection between what people say and what they believe are suspended” (On Bullshit, pages 36-37).

In the film Christopher Robin, Christopher asks Pooh, “What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?”

“‘Well, said Pooh, what I like best’—and then he had to stop and think. Because although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.” 

Every December, my family and I fly to London and sail back to the States on the Queen Mary 2. It is a wonderful family tradition. Last year (2021), Covid made the trip very challenging. Several family members needed new passports but the passport office was so backed up we had to wait until the day before the trip to walk into a passport office and hopefully walk out with renewed passports. We got the passports five hours before our plane left. We all needed a negative Covid to board the plane, another negative test within 48 hours of arriving in London, another before we boarded the ship and another before disembarking in New York City. There were many hurdles that could have hijacked the trip. 

Fortunately, all went well and all five of us boarded the ship. When we had dinner together the first night, there was a collective euphoria about having made it. What we felt was what Pooh was trying to describe: Sometimes anticipating an event and striving to make it happen has its own reward. 

Sometimes the journey is as satisfying as reaching the destination and often, a difficult journey makes the arrival even more rewarding.

When we know others are present, we feel less responsible to act, a phenomenon known as diffusion of responsibility. (Kida p221)

In 1964, a woman named Kitty Genovese was assaulted, raped, and murdered outside her New York City apartment. First, she was stabbed twice, and although she screamed for help, no one came to her rescue, even though 38 witnessed the tragedy. The bystanders didn’t even call the police.

Following this shocking event, researchers wanted to understand why no one responded. After much research, two social psychologists, John Darley and Bibb Latané, published insight into a socio-psychological phenomenon called diffusion of responsibility (also called the bystander effect). 

The bystander effect is the phenomenon in which the presence of people (i.e., bystanders) influences an individual’s likelihood of helping a person in an emergency situation. Specifically, Darley and Latané hypothesized that as the number of people who are present in an emergency situation increases, the less likely it is that any single individual will help someone in need. The findings suggest that in the case of an emergency, when people believe that there are other people around, they are less likely or slower to help a victim because they believe someone else will take responsibility.

For the most part, when we are by ourselves, individuals are eager to help others and look out for one another. But when we get in a group, we’re reluctant to take action. How is it that kind and loving people can see a problem and not respond?

One cause for hesitation may be people’s lack of confidence or competence. Or, they may think others in the group would be better at helping. Another cause is thinking surely, someone else will act. Or, when other bystanders do nothing, people may think there’s no real need to help out.

In May 2020 I was guilty of diffusion of responsibility. I was shopping at Walgreens when a man fell to the floor having a seizure. About five customers, including me, did nothing but stare at him for about a minute. It was at the onset of the Covid pandemic and I remember wondering if this was a violent reaction to the virus, in which case I should not intervene without proper protective gear. I did call 911, but in retrospect I wish I had offered physical help and assurance. 

Have you ever fallen prey to the diffusion of responsibility? 

A more subtle expression of this disorder is the thought—When everyone is responsible, no one is responsible. We’re often passive or slow to respond to a need because it’s not our specific job—it’s everyone’s job. 

In the future I’m going to be more responsive in emergency situations.