Good and Bad People

There's a truth that makes life much more complicated than it's alternative, and it's one that I wish everyone would accept: nobody is all good or all bad; each person is a mix of positive and negative traits (and we can't all agree on which traits are which anyway). People are complicated. Nobody is pure good, and nobody is pure evil. Even the best person you know has faults, and even the worst person in the world has a good side.

Accepting this truth makes it difficult to pass definitive moral judgments on people. We can't just label people as "good" or "bad" and leave it at that. And I think that's a good thing. A lot of our judgments about other people are far too simplistic. We tend to ignore or play down the faults of the people we like (possibly including ourselves), and we also tend to ignore or down play the good parts of the people we don't like (also possibly including ourselves). We try to simplify people in our own minds so we don't have to think of them as being any more complicated than just good or bad people. But it's never that simple. No one is ever that simple.

Even the best of us have our faults, and even the worst of us have some good parts. We should support the good and try to root out the bad. It's just not quite as simple as supporting or rooting out good or bad people. There aren't good people and bad people. All people are good and bad people.