Good and Bad

Former Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, says that although Michael Jackson’s life was challenged by heavy and extravagant debt, allegations of child abuse, the abuse of drugs, and all types of freakish and deviant behavior, we should forget all that and celebrate his art. Hey, that sounds great! Let’s also celebrate the art of Adolf Hitler, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez, Henry Lee Lucas and other deviant artists. After all, art transcends deviant behavior, no matter how deviant the artist.

Apparently, Powell, as do others, thinks we should only remember the good people did in their lives, not all the bad they did. This goes back to the belief that your life as a whole should be judged on a balance scale. If all the good you have done is placed on one side of the scale and all the bad you have done is placed on the other, if the good exceeds the bad, then you should be judged to be a good person. The problem comes with the weight that is assigned to each item. For example, people want to assign the selling a record number of music albums more weight than they assign to being being a drug addict or a pervert. People should have the guts to stand up for what is good, if they don’t, sooner or later all that will remain is the bad.