Several of my recent blogposts have offered examples of behaviors, particularly among bosses, that are considerably less-than admirable. Now, I am a firm believer that one should acknowledge, own, correct, and learn from one’s mistakes as a matter of course. Doing so requires strength of character and mind. In contrast, dodging mistakes is a mark of cowardice and fecklessness. Still, it is not enough to learn just from one’s own mistakes. There is another rich vein of error to mine for lessons: the mistakes of others, particularly those that manifest debilitating habits of mind or reveal adverse patterns of action.

​Chronic error can be a great teacher.

It stands to reason, then, if positive paradigms do not always simply transfer one-to-one from person to person, then learning from and applying negative paradigms will not necessarily be a matter of just doing their opposite. Just because x is wrong doesn’t necessarily mean that negative x is correct. Life is way more complex and much more fun than that.

You can make a similar analogy about raising and neglecting a child, writing and deleting a poem, staying healthy and succumbing to illness, climbing and falling off a ladder, establishing the truth and spreading lies, or any manner of acts of creation, wellness, integrity, or progress versus its annihilation.

By contemplating the relative strength of good and bad, I am not trying to pick a theological fight here about the nature of evil and of virtue, and I am no Manichaean. There are many nuances I will not consider here, nor will I define “good” and “bad.” Instead, at the risk of being overly reductive, I will simply attempt to demonstrate that on a pragmatic, daily basis, bad is stronger. ​

To be bad is to be primarily a destroyer, a destroyer of hope, of progress, of success, of order, of minds, of lives, etc. To be good is to be primarily a maker who generates and reinforces those things. Good requires one to be ever vigilant and to stand up to the destroyers. Since being bad is so easy, it is also enticing. Destruction, close up, can masquerade as progress—at least you’re getting something done--and because being bad is enticing, it tends to attract many adherents. Most of us are only occasionally bad, but a critical mass are dedicated to it. Consider the insurrection and attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Because there was relative ease of access, insurrectionists readily breached the building and wreaked mayhem in short order. Securing and cleansing the building in the aftermath requires far more effort and time. Securing and cleansing our democracy will demand more still. To be good means eschewing the allure of easy acts of destruction, which by itself is an exertion that requires much energy. Worse still, one can be tricked into being bad while it is exceedingly unlikely one could be tricked into being good. Notice I wrote "being," not "doing."

It is easier to break than fix, to stain than wash, to kill than grow, to forget than learn, and to deny than own the truth.

You may conceive some counter examples of when destroying is actually an act of good. For instance, tearing down a dangerously dilapidated warehouse may be a great benefit to a community. Nevertheless determining the goodness of an act is a weighing of the means and the ends. If the end is inherently good (removing a hazardous eyesore), then the act (tearing down a dilapidated warehouse) must be considered with that end in mind. Destroying in such a case may do no harm, so it is likely an act of good. Still, it is not enough to mean well, and it is rarely if ever acceptable to do bad in order to achieve a positive.

Being bad is easier than being good in part because there are many ways to be bad while there are far fewer options to do good. Let’s consider the global pandemic. We know that taking certain precautions, such as wearing masks, social distancing, avoiding gatherings, and even closing workspaces are, until full deployment of the vaccines, the only tools we have to slow this plague from sweeping over us. Some, though, have said all along that we should just let the disease take its course since it kills a mere 1% or 2% of its victims. I am not talking about Covid-deniers here but those who advocate doing nothing so that we will develop “herd immunity.” Given the math of allowing even 1% of the country’s 327,000,000 people die (a fun arithmetic problem for the kiddies, by the way) and the fact that many still live with persistent and even disabling symptoms long after recovering from the infection, why do so many find the inherent evil of mass death and disability so enticing? Sweden tried just letting the disease run its course, by the way, with disastrous results. Nonetheless, in the moment, it is just so much easier to do nothing, to pretend that this invisible scourge will not affect us much and will eventually go away, to deny that all those deaths and all that suffering are not too high a cost. So, strip off your mask, attend a large indoor gathering, risk getting Covid, and endanger others. It is easier in the short run to roll the dice and deny the potential consequences than to face reality and take personal responsibility.

In past crises, such as World War II, Americans reportedly came together and made many sacrifices in the spirit of unity. One could argue that America’s collective resolve and the defeat of the Nazis and their allies was worth the horror of war. I won’t argue otherwise. But if it were not for the defeat-of-Nazism part, would all that accord alone have been worth the casualties? Of course not. The Second World War is an extreme example, though, as is the movie Failsafe. We rarely encounter such starkly fraught choices. Even so, with Covid, as we surpass the number killed in the Great War, I can detect no similar universal self-denial for the common good, far from it. Some sacrifice much while others carry on as usual, unwilling to so much as wear a mask in public. Indeed, the disease has, in many ways and in convergence with other factors, brought out the worst in people. Similarly, while I will be forever grateful that the U. S. and its allies stood up to and defeated European fascism and Japanese imperialism, I would be lying if I did not see the subsequent harm that also arose from the means of global war and the deaths of hundreds of thousands, such as the spread of totalitarian communism, the rise of the military industrial complex, the paranoia of the Cold War, and other evils, some of which plague us to this day. 

"So, what about head to head, toe to toe, mano a mano? Which is stronger, good or bad? Since we are speculating about essential qualities and not beings, it is impossible to have them contest directly one-on-one. Good and bad can only confront one another through actual entities, proxies that are never essentially good or bad themselves, so it is difficult to ascertain. Nonetheless, logic dictates that bad has all the advantages. Even psychologically bad wins. If ten people compliment you and one offers a minor criticism, which do you remember? College professors lament amongst themselves that no matter how many positive reviews they receive from students, a single negative one will be all they can focus on. Sometimes, one negative review will stick in a professor’s craw for years despite otherwise universal support from students. Our brains are wired to favor the bad.

Physically, it is the same thing. While aging has some positives (I hope), most individuals long to escape the inevitability of decrepitude in order to retain the vigor of youth. As time progresses, everything deteriorates and everything passes. Assuming robust existence is good and decay and destruction are bad, we can see how bad will always conquer. But, there is renewal, you say. For every loss there is a gain. Every winter leads to spring. Yes, perhaps, for now, but not over the long haul. Eventually, the sun explodes. Besides, if you are suffering and dying, the fact that someone else somewhere else is being born may be cold comfort.

Versions of the axiom that “the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice” have been attributed to many, including the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I disagree with this sentiment. Not that any of us will be around to find out, but I don’t see how justice prevails on a cosmological scale. Justice is a human construct, an artificial concept that has no natural manifestation in the world, which is why we struggle with it so much. For the record, this has not always been my position. I long believed that the fight for justice could succeed once and for all, and that perhaps I would see evidence of that even in my lifetime. It gave me hope. Over many years, though, as I viewed the world through the lens of justice, I came to conclude that justice is primarily a human comfort. In fact, the only longterm outcome I can discern with any certainty is that the arc of the universe bends toward entropy. Four out of five physicists will agree.

Again, I am not making a theological argument here but a pragmatic one. And do not get me wrong. Although I profoundly believe that bad is stronger than good, that injustice is more powerful than justice, I am not callously advocating for giving into bad or tolerating or perpetrating injustice. Quite the opposite. Because bad is so mighty and because justice is so vulnerable, we must be ever vigilant in the fight for good. Each individual’s contribution to the cause for good will require strength, sacrifice, and perseverance, and collectively we can prevail if only for a while. Justice will not simply happen because it is supposed to. Justice, like good, is a concept that must be applied, reexamined, revamped, and reapplied constantly, for it is as flawed as the species that invented it.

No, this essay is not a call for us to be bad because bad is easier and because bad will likely triumph in the end. Nor is it a claim that bad is better because it is stronger. Adherents to the belief that stronger is inherently better generally also subscribe to the notion of a zero-sum game, which posits that there can only be one winner in any contest and no virtue in sharing success. As a philosophical or ethical stance, the narrow outlook of the zero-sum game warrants ruthless behavior and is conceivably a mark of inherent badness itself. 

The television drama Mr. Robot requires one to follow plot threads and characters that have been filtered through the mind of Elliot Alderson, played by Rami Malek, a man who is, on his best day, wildly delusional. The plot consists of misdirection, hallucinations, time jumps, multiple identities, and deception, so I naturally find it extremely engaging and compelling. It is just my sort of narrative. In addition, the dialogue frequently drops shards of wisdom, for instance when season-two character, Ray, played by Craig Robinson, lays this insight on Elliot: "Control is about as real as a one-legged unicorn taking a leak at the end of a double rainbow." 

Truth.

What is it about control? I suppose it is only natural that we want control in our lives. Otherwise, our existence would spin into chaos. But moment-to-moment, day-to-day, week-to-week control is enticingly ever-elusive. It is a bar of wet soap in your hand. The harder you squeeze the more likely the bar will shoot away. Yet, many of us persist in seeking to maximize control over every aspect of our lives and the lives of others. In the workplace, many bosses assume that it is their sacred duty to control every employee and every aspect of the job. If you have ever worked for one of these control-freak bosses, you know what a miserable disaster that can be. Most often their behavior takes the form of micromanagement or perfectionism. Whatever the case, the controlling boss eventually finds it maddening as full control slips out of grasp over and over, and, all too often, instead of adjusting to failure and choosing a different strategy, the boss tries to squeeze each bar of soap all the harder with the predictable outcome. If you have a boss who regularly says something along the lines of “we should do the same thing but just more of it,” you know you are in deep trouble.

Every day, we confront situations that challenge our sense of self and imperil our complacency.  What if, and stay with me here, what if those challenges are not threats? What if they are opportunities for self-discovery and growth.
​
I readily acknowledge that these challenges could very well result in the destruction of our sense of self-satisfaction and self-confidence. But if so, wouldn't that suggest that these self-assurances were unwarranted to begin with or fundamentally flawed? A more beneficial outcome would be to treat such challenges as a chance to stress-test our sense of identity and make adjustments to strengthen it through self-assessment and build resilience.

The challenges I speak of are too myriad and varied to list or describe, but they are common. Most often, they arrive in the form of of questions or criticism from other people or they occur within as self-doubt.

Always, though, how we receive them is entirely within our control.

Yup. I wrote that, and I can hardly believe it either. Frankly, I hate when people say things like "Oh, so and so is criticizing you? So what? Don't let it bother you. You're just giving them power." The reason such so-called advice is so annoying is because it shifts the burden to the victim and makes nonreactivity seem easy, within reach, and we all know how hard it is not to become defensive in the face of challenges to the self, which is only natural and, to a point, appropriate. And let's face it, other people can do horrible things to us. When I review just my past year, I can quickly compile a litany of grievances born of injustices, so I get it. But I also know, when I am being honest, that those grievances are all inside me. In fact, a little candid reflection reveals to me that the very people who committed injustices against me in the past year likely all congratulate themselves for having done some great service to the world in taking me on, for they, like me, are the heroes in their own stories. And knowing that fact makes the injustice sting all the worse. My ire rises, and my ego, beaten and battered, swells like like a welt on a bruise on an abrasion. Let it go? How can I?

​A short while back I wrote about the power of decency, but what about the superpower of decency?

Dr. Nichols' patient was struggling to breathe and begging the doctor to save his life. When his shirt was removed for treatment, the medical team, which Nichols described as "a Jewish physician, a Black nurse, and an Asian respiratory therapist," could see that his body was defaced with Nazi symbols, including a swastika tattooed prominently on his chest. As they set about treating the patient, Nichols reflected that a man with such emblems of hatred inked on his skin had likely devoted himself to devaluing, or worse, the lives of the very people working to save his. Nonetheless, the team prepared to intubate their patient, a procedure that would expose them to considerable risk of contagion in this age of COVID.

The scene Nichols paints deserves further rumination.

Think about it. Here we see a patient whose naked flesh proclaims his raw hatred for these individuals who risk their own health and lives to preserve his life even as they know their success would free him to continue to promote his noxious views and threaten their wellbeing and that of their families and loved ones.. 

Nazi tattoos are not some deplorable cosplay fad. They indicate a commitment to white supremacy and to classifying specific groups of people as subhuman or not quite human and decidedly intolerable. His Jewish doctor even recognized one tattoo as the insignia of the SS, who were responsible for designing and executing the "Final Solution," otherwise known as the Holocaust. Perhaps, you may argue, this patient had an explanation for the repugnant tattoos, such as he got them in prison because he needed the protection of a gang, or some such thing. Perhaps he had or would come to regret them. But why so many? And why keep them? 

Reasserting the Human in Humanist

Nichols describes himself as a humanist in his Twitter profile, which can indicate a number of things. Based on his story, I would guess that he means that he derives his morality from serving humanity rather than from the doctrine and mores of an established religion, dogma, or code. If I am right, Nichols' humble commitment to the service to others is a stellar example of humanist morality in action. Clearly, the point of his thread is not to garner praise for himself and his colleagues for doing their jobs. Indeed, the narrative culminates in a moment of crisis when, exhausted by months of battling COVID in the face of those who deny its existence and reflecting on the hatred this particular patient expresses via his body markings, Nichols hesitates. 

Again, the story is about Nichols' moral dilemma in the fog of his exhaustion. 

​It is a story of human decency decently told in 280-character bites. It even starts in medias res. For Nichols and his colleagues, this nightmarish scenario is just the quotidian, the day-to-day routine. Worn down as he must be, he still constantly does the right thing, the decent thing, no matter his feelings. His story is a companion to that of Jodi Doering, a nurse in South Dakota who told her tale of moral outrage in the midst of gruesomeness on Twitter and CNN at around the same time. She spoke of patients who deny the existence of COVID and call her names even as they are dying of the disease. Like Nichols and his team, she continues to care for them in the face of their hateful contempt. Her Twitter profile, which now apparently lists her name as Jodi Orth (@jodiorth), has a banner that reads "Be a Good Human," sadly an increasingly radical stance. In fairness, I must note that her testimonial has been disputed as exaggerated. Whatever the case, as Nichols observed, simply continuing to treat patients in the midst of COVID denial and hostility to medical personnel from a wide swath of the population is demoralizing in the extreme, and even more so in a place like South Dakota where the governor herself has abetted the spread of the disease and openly contributed to the widespread denial and consequent contempt for medical professionals.

These tales of frontline medical professionals, but two samples standing in for an untold number of told and untold stories, are more extreme than what most of us will ever experience. Still, they are clear instances of the power of decency, of remaining "a good human," in the face of horror.

I would go even further. For those of us in other walks of life, it is hard to imagine having to face anger, unreason, resentment, and hatred every day from the very people you are committed to serving, be they patients on a gurney or governors in the statehouse. Practitioners in other professions may confront similar dilemmas, (law enforcement officers, teachers, and, yes, even lawyers come to mind), but not perhaps in such stark terms and under such constant duress.

​In this way, maintaining basic human decency, being a good human, is not just a power, but it is a superpower. It takes an extraordinary amount of fortitude to assert decency day in and day out even without the onslaught of abuse and offense that medical professionals, these human beings, face. Maintaining decency along with its attendant virtues of integrity and compassion is simple but not easy, for it is not enough to declare "I am an honorable person, a good human" or to merely intend to be a virtuous person. Decency demands constant vigilance, vigilance that itself is enervating, which is partially why Nichols flagged for a moment before proceeding to work on his patient.

Human decency, being a good person in the face of it all, is indeed a superpower. It is an act of heroism that may just save us all. While it is not as cool and fanciful as the ability to fly or turn invisible or punch through brick walls, it remains the only superpower that challenges our humanity and thereby the only one that can help make us fully human.