"A good man is hard to find..." (Bohner and Grant 907).
The title of the short story by Flannery O'Connor and the phrase Red Sam gives on page 907, indicates that a good man is difficult to find...if there is such thing as "a good man." I think this is a foolish statement. What is a good man? Is a man good if he treats everyone else well? Is he good if he is patriotic? Is he good if he lies for a good purpose or if he says the truth for a bad purpose? If there is such thing as "good man," there would not be any universal concept. Different cultures...different people have different understanding of what a good man is.
Anyhow, there is no such thing as a "good" man or a "bad" man. It is undoubtedly impossible to identify a person as one or the other. Human have both qualities, not specifically meaning anything good nor bad, that balance out each person. We don't live in a fairy tale world where everything is black and white. Although some people may have more of one quality than the other, that doesn't make the person good or bad. A person has too many qualities, that it is impossible to explain in one word. Also bad qualities can be good in some circumstances and vice versa. In other words, the environment makes one quality look good or bad and even one quality cannot be completely defined as being good nor bad.
A good man is not hard to find...they are impossible to find. It is impossible to classify one person with one word. A person is so much worth than one adjective.
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1 comment:
Your title is amusing and perhaps a very deep one. Your thought that humans are both good and bad is profound in its simplicity. I enjoy how your mind works. -LN
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