"It's not always easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Sinners can surprise you. And the same is true for saints. Why to we try to define people as simply good or evil? Because no one wants to admit that compassion and cruelty can live side by side in one heart. And that anyone is capable of anything."
I don't know who said that. I don't remember where I first heard it, or if I've paraphrased or quoted it there. But I love the quote, I really do. It's not exactly pithy, but boy, is it accurate.
It is impossible to really, really, distinguish between the good people and the bad people, if one can distinguish at all. The balance between good and evil is so precarious in life, in individual actions and motives that the idea of one person defined by one true side of that line.
How does one really decide what's good and what's evil? I mean, take a look back to my post entitled "Night Shift" (God, that seems SO long ago...). I mean, Chuck was a sweet guy. He was a good guy. He cared for his friends and he tried to make them safe as he could.
But he had to be a bad guy to do that. He had to become a pimp. How does one, in the real world where everything is much less simplistic, truly differentiate between the motives of good and bad? Consider the "honour killings" that happen in some countries still today. A woman is murdered for being raped, as punishment for being raped, but the man (often a father or brother) sees his motives as pardon for the crime. That society, or at least that branch of it, sees that as the good motive cancelling out the bad of murder.
But how messed up is that? It's completely "evil" to me, to kill someone, especially your own family.
Blame is a curious thing. Evil actions are blamed on people, almost always, and how often do you reckon the blame for evil falls on good people?
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