“The Good Samaritan” Revisited

Have you ever wondered why, in the parable, the priest and the Levite avoided the injured roadside victim and, in contrast, what it was that might have caused the Good Samaritan to render aid?

I’ll admit I haven’t layed awake nights thinking about it, but a book I’m reading – given to me this past Christmas by my son Gregg and his wife Elaine – has brought the story back to mind.

The volume, by Malcolm Gladwell, is titled The Tipping Point, with the subtitle reading, “How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”.

It appealed to me right off the bat when I read the following review by the Daily Telegraph on the inside first page: “…a wonderfully offbeat study of that little-understood phenomenon, the social epidemic.”

Ever since Vance Packard’s Hidden Persuaders came out around 1960, I’ve been interested in what motivates people to take certain actions or to behave in a certain way. In advertising, of course, we were always trying to figure out what makes people “tick” so we could hopefully influence their behavior. Sociologists call it group dynamics.

Gladwell calls the phenomenon “the social epidemic.” He’s interested in what the “triggers” are for certain group behaviors and what might even cause a “herd” mentality in some cases.

In other words, is there a common thread to what made Sesame Street, the Pet Rock, Birkenstocks or the iPod so popular? Just one person can cause a flu epidemic, and a media idol can often initiate a fashion trend. You’ll have to read the book to get some answers if you’re enticed.

But back to the Good Samaritan question. In the chapter, “The Power of Context,” Gladwell relates how, at Princeton Theological Seminary, an attempt was made to replicate the parable.

Students were given the assignment of preparing a talk on the aforementioned parable that was to be given at intervals in a certain building. As each seminarian made his or her way to give his or her talk, it was staged so that the person would have to pass a man slumped in an alley with eyes closed and head down, coughing and groaning.

Some of the students had been told to hurry to the lecture hall, while others were told that they could take their time in proceeding.

Of the “hurried” group only 10% stopped to address the victim’s needs. In the “unhurried” group over 60% paused to give assistance.

What this seems to indicate, according to Gladwell, is that the convictions of one’s heart and the actual contents of one’s thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding our actions than the immediate context of our behavior.

Is he postulating that the priest and the Levite happened to be too much in a hurry and the Samaritan chanced not to be? Likely not.

However, a plausible inference might be that we need to keep the truths of our faith more in the forefront of our consciousness so that our behavior will be less affected by our immediate circumstantial pressures.