Bad Guy!

Kelsey, Sydney, Caleb, Megan, April, and hordes of stuffed animals taking over the bathtub.

Bad Guy! (25 November 2022)

Recently I have been thinking about bad guys. As you know, I’m the master at identifying bad guys. You should also know that a more proper title for the bad guy in a movie or story is antagonist. But “antagonist” doesn’t roll off my tongue as easily when I have to quickly identify the bad guy of any given movie.

As humans, when we talk of others, we often identify them as either good or bad. This seems to particularly be the case in the media and politics. Media finds it easier to sell a provocative headline (eg. Bad guys hurt cute Kitty!) than a boring headline (eg. Doctors remove the thorn from the cute kitty’s foot, causing pain in the process.). And politicians find it easier to get re-elected if they tell everyone how bad their opponent is.  But after much contemplation, I have come to the conclusion that everyone has made some good decisions and some poor decisions.

Look at the picture above with those five hooligans in the bathtub as an example. The gut reaction of many people might be to yell “bad kids!” because they are clearly celebrating a violent bathtub with their ferocious beasts. But, if we can look past the obvious ferocity for a minute, we can identify some good things as well. For example, one of the “bad kids” is wearing fuzzy cow socks- can anyone really be all bad if they wear fuzzy cow socks?

And here are some more examples…

Elon Musk, now the world’s richest person, recently purchased Twitter for $44 billion. It always seems that the media has a lot to say about wealthy and successful people, often painting them as the bad guys and sometimes celebrating perceived failures. A recent headline states that “Musk’s ‘erratic’ leadership will cause Twitter’s downfall, Mastodon founder says”. I guess that sells better than my slightly longer headline would have read, “It’s kind of hard to take over a $44 billion company. Musk has successfully led several companies (SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, PayPal, Starlink, etc.), but he has a lot on his plate. I hope he’s up to the task and helps make Twitter a better company”. Having read Elon’s biography and followed him in the news for about a decade, I realize Elon is not perfect. He can be a difficult guy to work for and has probably made some poor life choices. But I also have a lot of respect for what he’s accomplished. In fact, two of the greatest drivers of national security (besides individual righteousness) are economic and technological progress. From that perspective, I can’t think of anyone that has contributed more to America’s national security in the past two decades.

Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, another very wealthy person, and has actually flown to space on a rocket his company built. Last week Bezos was lambasted for recommending that people hold off on big Black Friday purchases to keep cash on hand in case of an economic downturn. (He also recently announced he was planning to donate $145 billion, but that didn’t get as much press.). Bezos may have had an ulterior motive for telling people not to make big purchases (ie. buy more small stuff on Amazon!), but I actually think it’s more plausible he’s just trying to help others make good choices going into uncertain times. And while I don’t know that much about Jeff Bezos, I’m grateful he started Amazon, because it sure makes shopping easier in lots of ways!

There’s probably no better example of bad guys in the news than Donald Trump. He’s either the worst guy ever or the savior of America, depending on who you ask. To be honest, Trump is not my favorite person and his morals are not what I would like to see in the president of the United States, however I did agree with many of his decisions as president. That being said, I don’t ever plan to vote for him again. In my opinion, we’re asking for trouble as a country if we let anyone who has such a hard time letting go of power stay in power.

This story is getting long (and it’s not very farmy, and not enough pictures, and kind of preachy… but who’s judging?) but here are a few points…

• The more famous you become, the more critics will highlight any poor choices you’ve made (and we all have some), and sometimes even make some up.

• If we try, we can find fault with anyone’s history (except Jesus). Even almost universally-revered people like George Washington and Martin Luther King had human flaws. 

• Life involves making judgments- who to vote for, who to date, and most importantly, who is the movie’s bad guy.

• I suppose we should try to judge only when necessary, and as kindly as possible. (at least that’s how I want to be judged)

Love you!

Dad