No More Good Guys

by ProfDave, ©2021

(Mar. 23, 2021) — Why is the world so insane?  Why is our nation so divided?  Where did all the common sense go?  What is wrong with this generation – and the last two or three, for that matter?  Why do I feel so out of touch with the 21^st century – or why is the 21^st century so out of joint with western civilization as I know and love it?  Sitting in church Sunday, I got it!  There are no more “good guys” – you know, the ones in the white hats! 

In a Christian worldview – the one held by most Americans 250 years ago – there are no good guys.  Jesus said, “there is no one good but God” (Mark 10:18).  He had a lot of trouble with folks who thought they were good but loved on people who definitely were not good and knew it.  Don’t get me wrong: being good is a good thing, earnestly to be desired.

The problem with the post-Christian worldview – the one held by 21^st century elites – is sorting out the world into good guys and bad guys based on stereotypes.  “Good guys” are supposed to rule.  “Bad guys” are supposed to shut up, obey, pay reparations, or off themselves.  But which is which when we don’t wear hats anymore?  Your bad guys are my good guys.  Reducing the country to two categories is naïve, simplistic, and terminally divisive.  “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

Ooops!  I have just made myself a bad guy by using a gender-associated word.  OK, I mean “gals,” too.  Of course, feminists agree that all guys are bad and all gals are good, right?  “All power to the people” they said.  The problem being, who are the people?  Robespierre was a “good guy,” the will of the people put him in charge.  He used the guillotine to force people to be free.  Hmmh.  American alternative: there are no “good guys,” so the best of us need limitations placed on our power (checks and balances).

Who are the people?  The industrial working class?  With the help of a few organizers they put Lenin in charge: “the dictatorship of the proletariat” – millions died and the state never “withered away.” American alternative: even “the people” need to be checked by law and morality.

Today there are more “people” than you can shake a stick at.  Who are the people?  Whoever you are.  If I understand it correctly, Critical Theory divides the world between the oppressed “good guys” and the oppressor “bad guys.”  On what basis?  Racists divide the world by skin color (continent of origin really).  Socialists divide it by socioeconomic class.  Rainbow folk by gender expression (heterosexual monogamists being definitely “not-people”).  Intellectuals by education level.  Secularists by religion (“none” being the only “people”).

There are two problems I, as a Judeo-Christian, have with this arrangement.  First, how do you determine that you are “good” and that your kind are “the people” while the rest of the world is “bad” and not worthy of existence?  Just because you are you?  Can I play too?  The consequences of that game, in my simple-minded 1950’s thinking, is a war of all against all.  Only one monster “good guy” is going to be left standing – really bad!  No wonder we are so divided.  There are no “good guys.”  Putting one guy (or gal) on top of the heap only accentuates his/her badness. “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Acton).

Secondly, the whole system is based on naked prejudice – just what Martin Luther King Jr taught us old timers to abhor.  The American (and Christian) creed is that all people are created equal.  Stereotypes never describe the individual.  Prejudice is always “bad.”  If it is wrong for the majority to stereotype and be prejudiced against a minority, then it is just as wrong for the minority to stereotype and be prejudiced against the majority.  What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  I miss the golden rule.

Will someone please explain to me how teaching us to resent each other is going to lead to a world of peace, freedom and prosperity?  How is revoking the “privileges” of others going to lead to more privileges for me, let alone a more just and loving society?  How can we distinguish between “good guys” and “bad guys” if we are all “bad guys?”  “There’s so much bad in the best of us and so much good in the worst of us that it behooves the most of us to say nothing about the rest of us” (traditional).  

David W. Heughins (“ProfDave”) is Adjunct Professor of History at Nazarene Bible College.  He holds a BA from Eastern Nazarene College and a PhD in history from the University of Minnesota.  He is the author of Holiness in 12 Steps (2020).  He is a Vietnam veteran and is retired, living with his daughter and three grandchildren in Connecticut.