{"id":76061,"date":"2024-04-25T20:11:34","date_gmt":"2024-04-25T18:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=76061"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:21:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T16:21:50","slug":"a-coffee-please-sweetie-civil-courage","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/power-and-control\/a-coffee-please-sweetie-civil-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A coffee, please, sweetie\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\n\tPower and control<\/a><\/div>\r\n

\r\n \u2018A coffee, please, sweetie\u2019 <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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On civil courage \u2013 and why, in tricky moments, we often look away rather than step in.
\nBy Wiebke Rose<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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Illustrative photo: Bastian Betz, Armina Ahmadinia, Jannis Schubert, Cora Trinkaus<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How are you today, darling?\u2019<\/strong>, \u2018Everything all right, sweetheart?\u2019 and \u2018A coffee, please, sweetie.\u2019 Mirja often hears lines like these at work. She is 20 and works at her local bakery. \u2018There\u2019s an older regular,\u2019 she says, \u2018who really does come in every day. Sometimes with his wife, sometimes without.\u2019 He calls every member of the bakery\u2019s all-female sales staff by a pet name, without exception. \u2018At first I just found it a bit odd, but now it makes me really uncomfortable.\u2019

The long-standing customer also stares down her and her colleagues\u2019 tops or at their bottoms whenever they bend over or sweep something up from the floor. \u2018The whole condescending way he treats us. For me, that borders on sexual harassment,\u2019 Mirja admits. Talking to me, she says she wishes someone would say something for once. But she also understands why her colleagues don\u2019t step in. \u2018We\u2019re simply afraid of getting into trouble with our boss \u2013 it\u2019s really important that we\u2019re polite to our customers.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The more people witness an emergency<\/strong>, the less likely it is that anyone will intervene.<\/p>\n <\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

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That is just one of many reasons<\/strong> why people stay silent in similar situations. The political scientist Gerd Meyer wrote about the pros and cons of acting with civil courage back in 2011, in the magazine proJugend. Meyer classifies civil courage as a particular kind of socially responsible action rather than a human trait. Acting out of social courage, however, is not the same as ordinary helping or showing solidarity.

One decisive difference is the setting: where the emergency takes place and prompts at least one other person to intervene. It has to be in public for it to count as civil courage. What\u2019s more, intervening usually comes with consequences that are partly unpredictable. Will stepping in achieve anything at all? Am I putting myself in danger? Must I expect negative consequences for myself \u2013 like Mirja, who doesn\u2019t want to annoy her management?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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