There’s no real “rule” here, but simply Maher’s assertion—one that many people won’t sccept in the Time of Demonization—that people can do both good and bad things (it’s better to say that then brand someone as good or evil, though of course people can lean toward one side or another).
This monologue was prompted, of course, by recent revelations that Cesar Chavez was a sexual predator and rapist. Maher mentions others with such ambitendencies, including Thomas Jefferson, Michael Jackson, and Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia who’s particularly vexing.
Maher tries to accept the fact that sometimes the bad comes with the good, and that’s really the only life lesson you can derive from this monologue. But it’s worth pondering. For if you see what happens to people like Chavez, who are written off as too evil to extol in any way, you see the inability of many people to accept nuance (and no, I’m not saying that there should be Cesar Chavez high schools.)
The other guests include Lloyd Blankfein (former CEO of Goldman Sachs), Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, and Anthony Scaramucci, who lasted a mere ten days as Trump’s communications director.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that when there is talk about good people with bad behavior, we are quick to mention Thomas Jefferson and a few others. But NOBODY mentions MLK Jr. He was a famous womanizer and plagiarist (the university where he got his doctorate has said that there was a great deal of plagiarism in his dissertation). What are people afraid of? We’ll never get past racism until we can treat all races equally.
The difference is that as far as we know, MLK was a serial adulterer but not a sexual predator. There are rumors that he was present when a woman was raped, and laughed at the attack, but information about that has yet to be released.
I’d say that adultery ranks as less serious than impregnating one’s slave (which exploits power differentials) or than outright rape.
Thomas Jefferson enslaved other human beings. At the age of 50 (or close to it) he engaged in a sexual relation with his wife’s half-sister, who was enslaved to him, Sally Hemmings, who was 14 or 15 at the time. She would eventually bear several children for Jeffereson – all of whom were enslaved by their biological father. On the Monticello plantation, they were treated the same as the rest of the enslaved Africans. Jefferson freed his children after his death but not Sally Hemmings. Their children worked for years to buy their mother’s freedom.
Yeah, that’s the same thing as MLK engaging in extramarital affairs with consenting adult women!!!!!! Joker.
You did not read the Roolz, did you? Your last comment, calling a reader a name (joker) is rude. You could have answered civilly. So either apologize t the peron you insulted or you will not post here any longer. Look at my reply, which is civil.
Thank you, Professor Coyne, for posting Maher’s insightful monologue. Perfect people are in very short supply these days.
In Jewish tradition every person has an impulse for bad that emerges at birth, and a good impulse that comes at age 13. I take this quaint idea to mean that mischief and evil are innate. Humans are not “born in sin,” but we do have to work in order to overtake our essential nature.
And so Maher is correct. Jefferson was truly a bad boy. And yes, MLK philandered. But how lucky we are to have had them.
AI informs me that beheadings continue to the present day in Saudi Arabia. To the extent that Maher is disposed to cut Mohammed bin Salman a bit of slack, I trust that he will be similarly charitable to (and take a break from making cute little digs at) those who violate a couple of his world-crisis personal pet peeves: wearing a sweater vest and having an AOL email address.
Pretty much the crux of it.