Who decides who is a good person?
I was having this conversation, sort of, with someone the other day. “She is a really good person” they said, and I genuinely hesitated because I don’t know what being a good person is. Do you?
They meant that she is generous with some people, which sure, it is a lovely quality to have. But are stingy people not good people? I know people that are loving and funny and smart but would never pay for a meal or arrive to your house with a bottle of wine. I would never, not for a minute, doubt of their goodness. Whatever that is.
They meant that although she holds really abhorrent transphobic and ignorant views, she is a dedicated mother. Sure, but would the mothers of the trans kids whose lives are infinitely worse because of people like her, think that she is a good person? When they see her driving her own kids to all the extra curricular activities, dedicated as she is, will they forget and forgive the tears of their own kids, maybe on their way to their own activities, for the bullying in the playround after repeating the things they heard at home?
They meant that she wouldn’t intentionally hurt someone, and it is true, she is always so polite and demure (now that the word is trendy). But whenever we talked about Gaza she defended Israel and said it was complex, and during the dinner she dropped racist comments, and sexist, and fat phobic and got defensive when I said that it shouldn’t be controversial to be appalled about a state killing children, that genocide being off limits should be bare minimum.
Is she a good person because she said it to me and other white women, over food and not on twitter? or in a press conference? or in a room where decisions were going to be made? Because I think decisions were made in that dinner, we, both individually and collectively decided who we are, as people, as group, as society.
Who decides who is a good person? I am not saying she is not. Actually I replied and said that most people are good people, or think they are good people, or have a reason (not a justification) for all the shitty things that they do, think or believe that make the rest of us wonder if they are actually good people.
We are all born with potential to be good. It is the information we consume, the trauma we hold, the privilege we carry, the systems that keep us miss-informed, the algorithm that polarises us, the bubbles we live in. On top of the potential we are born with, there are layers of not knowing better, of suffering, of ignorance, of apathy, of lacking.
I find it fascinating, though, the blanket of “but they are a good person” that we throw over our friends and family, shielding them from any accountability, from attention. A distraction technique so we don’t have to see ourselves in the mirror of what it means for us doing nothing about their problematic attitudes. Our problematic attitudes. They are good people means, their version of goodness is aligned enough with my version of goodness. They don’t hurt ME.
She is a good person because she offered to pay the bill at the end, she remembered my kids birthday, she brought a lasagna to a grieving widow.
I wonder if terrorists also bring lasagnas and offer to pay the bills sometimes. If rapists do. If Hitler did. If Maduro does.
I have spoken before about being atheist, so no hope for me about a fairness system in which we will be punished for our sins but forgiven with grace thanks to our goodwills. I don’t believe in a burocratic system of points, as much as I love a spreadsheet. I don’t think anyone (especially not the god of the old testament - while we are talking about genocide) will award us a final recognition of our goodness. A pin badge. A certificate. Good enough.
So we are alone in this. We are doomed to be as good people as we can, only with our flawed criteria, blindly figuring things out, grasping new learnings that show us how far we walked in the wrong path, surrounding ourselves with those that we admire and learn from, consuming the content that get us closer to the version of ourselves that we want to go bed with. We are going to have to figure out what is good enough for ourselves, and for those that we choose to surround ourselves with.
To be honest I don’t think she is a good person, or a bad person either. I think all of us are a mix of both. I think we humans are complex and intriging that way.
I am trying to be better at compassion, at nuance, at curiosity. I can even do the exercise of understanding where all her views come from. I can try to see her pain and hurt instead of only the pain and hurt that she causes. But let me tell you, I am on my period and it is exhausting. So when they said “she is a good person” I just hesitated because, who (and definitely not me while cramping in the sofa) can decide who is a good person. Whatever that it even is.