"There are Precious Few at Ease with Moral Ambiguities..."

Tom McGowan as The Wizard from the musical Wicked
The title of this post comes from a song the Wizard sings, called Wonderful, where he discusses how, when it comes to History, one tends to overlook moral ambiguities and instead categorize people as "good" or "bad (http://www.metrolyrics.com/wonderful-lyrics-wicked.html)."

While reading Ned Bustard's essay discussing "good," I was a bit surprised to find that he used the quote, "I'm not bad- I'm just drawn that way," as one of the headings (p. 16). The quote is from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and the character who said the line is Jessica Rabbit, well-known for being a provocative cartoon character. In his text, Bustard gives the impression of placing good and evil into very distinct categories without much overlapping. Despite this, he introduces a character who is a bit difficult to place morally. Being a slapstick adult comedy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? is not overly concerned with creating deep, complex characters, yet Jessica Rabbit, despite the obvious (and unfortunate) sexualized intent in the creation of her character, turns out to be a good person overall. She genuinely loves her husband, Roger Rabbit, and many of her actions are based on her love for him.

This was the most George Fox Appropriate image of her that I could find...

Moral complexities get much more difficult when the focus is moved from cartoon characters to actual people. 

In the text, Bustard analyzes what it means to portray God and his goodness in one's art. He mentions that true goodness is not always pretty or easily digestible, but instead is embedded in truth (p. 20). On this point, I definitely agree with Bustard, as it is important to be honest with one's work and not attempt to sugar-coat reality. However, when it comes to Bustard's definition of goodness, there are a few points on which I disagree.

Bustard states on page 22, "As shown earlier, good cannot tolerate evil. Even on a human scale, justice in the face of evil is demanded." Bustard furthers his argument on the idea of justice by mentioning the Holocaust and how the German people did little to stop what was occurring (22). The Holocaust was undeniably one of the most horrific things to occur in human history, but creating a dichotomy of the German people being "evil" and letting it happen does not serve to accurately portray the situation. Most of the German civilians did not understand what was occurring with the concentration camps, and were fed propaganda about how the Jews were being treated well (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007822).

Since WWII, several studies have been done about the nature of authority and how it affects people's behavior. One study that was done on this topic is the Milgram experiment. The experiment began with the Experimenter (the person conducting the test) asking the two participants to draw slips of paper, which would determine who was the "learner" and who was the "teacher." The learner would be connected to a machine administering electric shocks, controlled by the teacher. The shocks were labelled from 15 to 450 volts. The teacher was told that the study would be about learning, and was instructed to list off word-pairs to the learner and administer a shock when a mistake was made, the shocks increasing by 15 volts each time.

The set up for the Milgram experiment. The Experimenter (E) and the Teacher (T) are separated from the Learner (L) by a wall.

The person playing the learner was actually an actor, and the paper drawing was rigged so that the volunteer would always be placed in the role of the teacher. No actual electric shocks were administered, and instead the switches on the shock generator activated pre-recorded pain sounds. The volunteer, playing the role of the teacher, believed that he was hurting the learner through the electric shocks. If the teacher asked to stop the procedure, the Experimenter, as the authority figure, would respond with a series of verbal prods, such as "you must go on," though never actually forcing the volunteer to keep going. Though all of the teachers showed extreme discomfort, 65% of the participants flipped all the switches, including the final 450 volts switch. Even when faced with a choice that went firmly against basic morals, the participants submitted to the figure of authority, even though they felt extremely conflicted and nervous (http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html).

Here's a good video describing the experiment and showing how the participants behaved:

As this experiment shows, people act in disturbing and despicable ways, but not always because they are bad people. More than anything, people are broken. Even in cases like The Holocaust, where the worst of tragedies occurred, one cannot simply dismiss what happened by saying evil people committed the crime. It was simply people, average people, people who could have been any person living today with the same result occurring. Bustard's ideas of good and evil rest a bit too heavily on a binary viewpoint to capture the muddled nature of humanity. No one is solely good or evil, and all of us have the potential for both. This is vital to acknowledge, as it is through our acceptance of humanity's complexity that we find our ability to consciously work on being better people, and to not hold ourselves above those who are broken. 

Sources:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/wonderful-lyrics-wicked.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Rabbit

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007822

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

http://www.simplypsychology.org/milgram.html

https://explorable.com/stanley-milgram-experiment

Bustard, Ned. It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God