If we are honest with ourselves, we know deep down that there are few situations in life where we can label some action or decision either a) completely good or b) completely evil. President Biden's presidency is NOT completely ruined and his legacy tarnished. By the same token, his early successes are not going to produce some sort of sainthood in the near future.
In AP Language class, we would discuss the standard prompt for any essay, which amounted to "Defend, refute or qualify your position regarding the following essay or article or chapter..." There were three options: agree completely and fine ways to reinforce the thesis of the writer, disagree with the thesis by bringing in counterarguments, or "qualify" your opinion by discussing BOTH what worked and what didn't work in the thesis.
The choice almost always was to qualify (the "gray" area), in some way, since arguments that are important enough to warrant published comments and essays always involve issues about which intelligent people might disagree. To qualify our response means that we have given multiple positions some thought and that we are trying to be fair in imagining other views.
A favorite writing assignment early in the term was to ask students to quickly "vote" on what side of a timely argument they favored, and then to assign them to write a persuasive essay that argues from a DIFFERENT point of view. My experience was that students had much more fun and wrote much better when they researched and wrote from that POV they did not share personally.
Student after student told me that they suddenly understood the "gray" a bit more, and most of the top writers in the course quickly learned that life does not neatly sort into "100 percent" right or wrong.
It's related to how many actors find it more energizing to play a villain than the hero, or to act out scenes where their character is nothing like their own personality. In other words: acting.
I read a persuasive piece today that pointed out a logical flaw in the currently popular attacks on Biden and the administration's handling of the Afghanistan exodus and troop withdrawal. The flaw is simple: no commentator can offer the option NOT chosen that would have produced an orderly, logical and safe evacuation of thousands of people. The world is way too complex for that.
The Broncos coach announced the starting quarterback for the season today following a very close competition between two decent athletes. Let the argument begin, of course, but one thing is a sure bet: when Teddy Bridgewater quarterbacks the team in its first loss, many "experts" will immediately scream that Drew Lock would have been the better choice. There will be no way to test that theory, of course, which makes it even more fun (and more futile).
Most endings are less than satisfying, it turns out. Everyone gets to speculate on what might have been better, and there is no way to refute hypotheticals.
No one liked the way Seinfeld ended. Or The Sopranos. Or this post.
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