c/o Ulysses Conrad

When I first read, “I Hate Good People: Why We Should Stop Pairing Morality and Identity,” the provocative title certainly drew my attention—not by stirring the ire of your average reader of The Argus, but by novelly expressing belief in and philosophy of the basic nature of the so-called intelligent inhabitants of this planet. What the writer posits is very clearly a belief in human nature and its lack of immutability, a claim which I too support. However, I believe the writer slightly crosses the line in calling for the abolition of definitive labels for our fellow society members. 

Labels exist to generalize the vast data that we live through and experience so that it can be more readily understood, summarized, and communicated. This poses a paradox as I—surely everyone else reading this will agree—and all the people to whom we attach labels are completely unique persons (even clones have separate identities and personalities), and these labels can change based on the environment. This paradox seemed to not bother any of our ancestors, as we use labels to this day, describing our interactions with the people we come across (e.g. “Wow that professor is mean/bad, don’t take their class”).

I see the writer’s point about generalizing too far, and I’m in agreement that it would be unfair to presume the morality of the people we meet without truly learning more about their personalities. I’m sorry to say this is where we stop agreeing. The writer describes the frustration of running into the occasional “asshole” at school and argues that there is a “rampant issue of assholeism.” The writer proposes that everyone thinks they are a good person, and we should change that by doing away with the term altogether. I feel that a more effective remedy to this “rampant issue” would be to communicate your opinion and work with the disagreeing individual, rather than give up on them.

If someone is hypothetically delusional about their morality, the cure is not to isolate them or to remove their ability to be judged; the goal should be to break their delusion. I wouldn’t say we are living through an “assholeism” pandemic; I would say we’re in a meaningful communication recession. We’re all trying our best to live life happily in this world, and the lack of identity communication leads to the creation of an unrealistic standard, cobbled together from snippets of “good” people that we hear about all the time.

I commend the writer’s final lines, encouraging empathy and honesty, but I have to say that we humans aren’t perfect and that, eventually, it will get harder and harder if there’s no one to look up to. Everyone has parents, older siblings, or maybe an older cousin or friend that we look up to and learn from. They are important to the way we try to emulate the “good” we see others bring to the world.

Yet these role models are idealized, romanticized even. They aren’t fully good people—just look at the Wikipedia pages and scroll down to the “controversies” section. I agree there is no such thing as a perfectly good person or a completely bad one for that matter, but I believe people find it easier to not work towards a standard of “good” when the idea has been so radicalized and blown out of possible proportions.

While I applaud the initiative and bravery in the writer’s opinion, I feel that there’s a different solution to the writer’s (and society’s) problem. We should be redefining “good” and “bad” and discouraging a generalization or polarity of these terms, especially in communication with the “assholes” whose morality the writer has an interest in improving. As far as I believe, the best way to help is to talk to each other, which not enough of us are doing.

The writer gives advice at the end of the article, and while being honest and trying not to make judgments sounds good in theory, we don’t have a way to do away with labels in a manner that still maintains their effectiveness. If you’re trying to make the world a better place, make conversation with people. It’s hard, and it will take effort, but if you make the idea of “good” sound feasible, and explain what someone is doing wrong and how to fix it, you’ll find more success than if you just hope for this person you care about to change. 

Ulysses Conrad is a member of the class of 2026 and can be reached at uconrad@wesleyan.edu.