Forget 'speak no evil’

The Boston Herald

I've saved the clipping for years A minor British stage actress died ages ago while I was visiting London and a newspaper dedicated nearly a quarter of a page to a remembrance of her life. It's a great obituary, so typical of the British. They don't just tell you that someone died and is being buried at such and such a time. They tell you that she loved Yeats and never missed afternoon tea. They give you examples of how someone lived. Whether an actor or a laborer, every Brit gets a noticeable and fond farewell.

Here in the U.S. you have to be important to warrant more than a listing of funeral plans, which is a shame. Our no-nonsense dismissal of the dead robs us of history and connections. Dinah Shore was important so her death last week elicited many fond remembrances. The most interesting statement came from Burt Reynolds 'She is the only person I ever knew who had nothing bad to say about anyone.' 

I was impressed with this. My mother would have been too. She would have said, 'That's the nicest thing that could be said about any person.' She used to tell me all the time 'If you don't have anything good to say about someone, don't say anything at all.' And I, in turn, told my children the same thing. But when I started to really think about what this meant, when I put sentiment aside (My mother said it, therefore, it had to be true.) I found myself face to face with a dictum that shouldn't apply anymore, that maybe never should have applied because it has the potential of doing far more harm than good.

'Don't talk about someone behind his back. Don't spread rumors. Don't lie. Don't make fun of anyone.' These are needed rules. But to never say anything bad about someone? This is neither practical nor honest.

'I don't like that man,' a child tells her mother. The mother replies, 'That's not nice to say. You don't even know him.' The child knows that she doesn't like the man. This is her instinct. She knows she doesn't want to be around him. She -- knows how she feels when he looks at her. But her mother says there's nothing wrong with the man.’ 

So the child doesn't say another word.

As adults we play a variation of this game. We make excuses for people. He's not that bad. He has a foul mouth, but he doesn't mean what he says. He talks big, but he's all talk. He gets a little out of hand, but he wouldn't really hurt anyone. We naively believe that all people - even the people we don't like and don't trust - will behave the way we would behave, that at their core are intrinsic good.

That's why we are continually startled by priests and police chiefs who molest children, by young people who kill without remorse, by an average middle-aged guy going bonkers on a highway and grabbing a crossbow and shooting someone to death, by a learned doctor who takes a gun and kills 50 innocent people in the name of God.

Look for the good in people. And don't say anything if you haven't anything good to say.

There are bad people in this world. They torture and kill the innocent. They prey on the weak and the powerless. They shoot children. They climb towers or board trains or barge into churches or rob neighborhood stores and murder good people. The problem is we don't believe in bad guys. We believe in good guys who do bad things. We make excuses for evil. We invent reasons for all that is wrong. And evil grows, while good people everywhere refuse to acknowledge it.