Greater Good vs. Good/Bad.

It’s not a light switch, up or down, on or off, good or bad. It’s more nuanced than that, and requires a more subtle mathematics.

Here’s a Person: a Coach perhaps, or a Priest. Works hard and contributes to the School or the Church. Also has flaws — an all too human reality. Perhaps drink. Perhaps an affair. In the course of a long life, gets closer or further away from drugs, gluttony or greatness — closer to, or more distant from imperfection.

So it goes… Life is long and comes in all colors — and shades of grey. Exemplars, all of them, are in fact imperfect. They are likely rife with flaws and failures — especially if judged against the moral codes of centuries to come.

Are we asking too much? Consider the silliness of the current predilection for retroactive moral perfection if expressed in present time as a want ad:

Comic Wanted
The Work: Inventing a new comic genre based on the reality of growing up poor in a racially segregated neighborhood — a housing project — with an absent father. Must be open to higher education, pioneering a career not only in comedy but dramatic action films and television entertainment as well. Must be dignified, humorous, patient and cool. Must be willing to face the challenge of losing a child in a senseless murder. Must never behave as a classic male dominant creature! Must never misuse drugs, alcohol or fame as a lure for sex.

Author Wanted
The Work: Create a National Founding Document to embody the Soul of a Nation. Serve as President. Found a State University. Must not harbor a love of fine spirits or privacy. Must not have a brush with insolvency. This individual must carry on their entire life in such a way as to inspire the admiration of all people for a minimum of sixteen centuries. Must never over indulge, over spend, over consume, or hold slaves. Subsequent discovery of any shred of human imperfection will result in expulsion from the arcana, and immediate incineration of the classic architectural estate.

Founder Wanted
The Work: Founder/Donor to establish a National University. Must possess the means, intelligence and intention to financially anchor an international institution of higher learning. Not a only must the individual be without blemish, but also their entire family — and genetic line. This individual must be inspirational not only to their community in their time, but also to all people for the next thousand years.

Leader Wanted
The Work: A singular leader is desired for a great nation which has fallen on hard times. Must possess the skills and heart required to turn an entire people from their self-destructive path of self-criticism and re-focus them on building, growing, serving and rebuilding their nation. Must connect effectively with leaders of other countries, while effortlessly speaking out for a loftier vision of national life. Must never indulge an extra-marital affair, and must ultimately die, benignly in their sleep.

The Danger of Intolerance.

Ethics provides a useful point of reference for analyzing the relative value of an act or course of action. But ethics often becomes the scale we misuse to weigh another person — and find them wanting — in retrospect. So we reject them outright, then launch another voyage of discovery in the search of a more perfect avatar.

The human tendency is to perpetually continue the either/or “search for greatness,” rejecting everyone and everything as somehow imperfect, leaving us with no safe harbor, no allies and no one to admire.

Instead perhaps, we should separate the individual, who is an “agent in perpetual motion” from any one act or series of acts. The act(s) may be individually good or bad when examined against today’s perspective; but the individual is in motion — still on the way somewhere else — we hope somewhere better. Emulate the good, and keep moving. The bad is its own punishment.

1. For You
Are your standards (for yourself and others) just a little too high? Are you indulging the self-destructive tendency to criticize everyone and everything — finding fault with it all? Including yourself? What if you begin this year with the resolution to take the good where you find it? Of course you’ll leave the bad out of your equation.

2. For the Family
The flaws in our exemplars — body odor, bad breath, financial indulgence, affairs, undervaluing our mates, prejudice, odd hours, large and small dishonesty, unusual sleeping patterns, being driven, obsessed, afraid or just mean. All part of being human, and all irrelevant to the larger question: “What has this individual contributed to the greater good?” Aunt Julie may be an inveterate preacher, creating religious fatigue in everyone. Yet, she raises five children, and inspires twenty grandchildren and their progeny with her selfless contribution to their upbringing. Maybe we should simply “Score the Greater Good” and choose to limit the damage by creating a little distance when the undesired sermons begin.

3. For the Workplace
It’s hard: “Focusing on the Good, while Mitigating the Bad.” But as a strategy, it’s head and shoulders ahead of any other approach. Very few can keep the mental ledger straight (while the shrill children are busily scraping our forebears’ names from University Archways and the Currency). Maybe it’s not a “zero sum game” friends. Maybe a guy can be mean, obsessive, cruel and self-absorbed — and at the same time magnificently lead a global powerhouse. Find and encourage the best in your people, and help them minimize the rest.

Life and People are perfect — in their momentary imperfection. The trick (and it is a most difficult trick) is to love and respect them right now in all their humanity — in spite of all their failings.

A good, funny, useful, meaningful idea can come from anywhere! If we understand the ethics of the greater good, we can be able to accept the good, wherever we find it.

Let’s leave our Flawed Best some room to stand…