Bad Guys: A Post from 2014

Humans, by our very nature, love to categorize the world and everything we find in it. It’s a tool we use to learn. By classifying things we take the wealth of knowledge that is this world and break it down into manageable bits that help us digest and understand it. We especially love to classify ourselves; white and black, tall and short, blood type A and blood type O. Ideally, this would make sure that everyone had a place in this world and everyone belonged in their perspective niche.

Perfect, right?

Well, at one point we came across what are called heroes aka the “good guys”. Paragons of moral fortitude and examples of everything that’s right in this world. Heroes are as old as humans, and as humans we made a category for them. We propped them up, we immortalized their stories, and cemented their place in society. What we did not fully understand at the time was that for every hero we created, we also created a villain. OK, we sort of understood this, most of the time these heroes of legend arose out necessity to stop a villain. We didn't make those particular villains, and occasionally a villain would rise to stop a hero. Either way, we decided as a race that some of us were good guys and some of us were bad guys.

Now flash forward to 2014. Our race has advanced so far and so fast that we are now starting to expand away from Earth. Our technology, our society, or advances are both stunning and beautiful. We learned and we learned well. Were we not so very flawed, we might have been able to create a utopia by now. Perhaps we still will.

Except…

Except in our brave new world we still have good guys and bad guys.

Now before I continue, I want to explicitly state that I believe in the existence of evil and the existence of good. When light is cast at an object there is light, and the remainder is the absence of light, otherwise known as dark. Heroes do exist and thank goodness they do. There is evil in this world and it’s up to heroes to eliminate it. What I am talking about is a different kind of good guy and bad guy. Perhaps we should call them “feel good guys” and “feel bad guys” as to not get confused. I will explain.

In the movie Wreck-It Ralph we are introduced to the diamond in the rough himself, Ralph. Ralph is a character in a video game where he is the bad guy. His programming dictates that he must routinely destroy a suburban high-rise and terrorize its residents. The game demands his rampages so as to allow the hero of the game, Fix-It Felix Jr, to come in and fix everything, thus saving the day. In this cut and try video game world, everything has a purpose and everyone is in their place.

Except…

Except Ralph as become increasingly dissatisfied with his lot in life. His wanton destruction quickly becomes meaningless to him as he searches for a greater purpose. Ralph is a bad guy; it’s who he is and why he was created. He is publicly ostracized and rejected by society. Yet he wants to experience more, do more, and be more. Except that he can’t, he’s a bad guy. They just don’t do that. Bad guys have to follow the program and wreck things like Ralph does. Ralph is 9 ft tall and weighs a couple of hundred pounds. He has colossal, hulking arms which he uses to destroy things. His appearance is unkempt and everything about him denotes him as a bad guy. So why doesn't he feel like it?

Do you ever feel like a bad guy? Somewhere out there, someone exists just to fix the problems you create. Someone is destined to oppose all your clumsy errors. You look bad; therefore someone out there is looking good. Feel familiar?

It’s because as a society we've created the feel good guys and the feel bad guys. Hollywood is a great example of this. We've taken normal, deeply flawed individuals and turned them into heroes. We immortalize them in movies and tell the world these are our modern day heroes. Everything they then do becomes hero-like behavior. They have finely tuned herculean bodies. They have money, fancy cars, big houses, and extravagant lifestyles. They are sought after, followed, and emulated on every level. Their behavior is our example of perfection.

But…

But what has this done? If these “good guys” are the gold standard for everything that’s right and perfect then I must not be doing anything right at all. I don’t have a fancy car, my body has seen one too many milkshakes, and I live in a condo. Those grievous confessions aren't nearly as bad as my behavior. I do worry about money, I don’t worry too much about going to the gym, and frankly I don’t care what others think of me. I must be a bad guy. Or someone society has covertly tried to convince that they should feel bad. They have to shame me into wanting to be a hero/good guy otherwise if I didn't then their heroes would lose power.

Except I am perfectly happy being a bad guy. Bad guys are awesome as Ralph learns in the movie. Bad guys are sometimes just bad guys because that’s who society has covertly labeled bad by the virtue of them not following what society has marked as good. Again, this is not a morality issue. We’ve just confused our heroes with those valued by the majority.

Listen to Zangeff, a character from the same movie and from the game street fighter.

“I relate to you, Ralph. When I hit bottom, I was crushing man's skull like sparrow's egg, between my thighs... and I think, why you have to be so bad, Zangief? Why can't you be more like good guy? Then I have moment of clarity... if Zangief is good guy, who will crush man's skull like sparrow's eggs between thighs? And I say, Zangief you are bad guy, but this does not mean you are *bad* guy.”

To be clear I am not advocating the crushing of men’s skulls, especially between thighs. However, I do think that Zangief had a genuine moment of clarity. He was crushing men’s skulls but started to feel bad about it because society was making him feel bad for who he was. He realized then that if he changed who he was then there’d be no one like him left. He ultimately decides he is just who he wants to be.

At the end of the movie, Ralph learns this important lesson. Bad guys aren't actually very bad. Bad guys are just bad guys because someone has labeled them that way. What is really important is that Ralph is unique. But in our world we don’t like unique. We crave conformity, we crave being politically correct, and we crave acceptance. Being unpopular=bad. Wrong!

 That’s why I am OK with being a bad guy. Bad guys are creative, bad guys don’t abandon their deeply held beliefs, and bad guys are constantly defeated but never give up. Guess what? You might just be a bad guy too! Don’t let society, or the media, or anyone treat you like less because you don’t blindly seek after what they do. Many of this world’s greatest heroes were bad guys to popular society. Look at Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Smith, Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, most Christians, and most atheists.   These people were labeled as bad guys. Can you imagine this world if they had opted to be popular instead? Understand that society wants you to feel like a bad guy. But be proud of that! It means you are doing something right. If everyone is thinking the same thing then someone is not thinking! Be a bad guy, embrace your inner badiness. Stand up for yourself and be a bad guy to the truly bad people of the world. Before we part ways, please join me in the bad guy affirmation.

I am bad, and that's good.

I will never be good, and that's not bad.

There's no one I'd rather be than me.