How do you feel when the black hats don’t get caught? Personally I get highly irritated. But it is true that the black hats don’t always get caught… at least, we don’t see how/if they get caught. It was so much easier ‘in days gone by’ knowing who to root for and who to boo. I was raised that right prevailed that the white hats always won and black hats got punished.
Obviously in real life that didn’t/doesn’t always operate. Then in theaters we started seeing ‘anti-heroes’. Totally an oxymoron. You can’t always tell who is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ even with a scorecard because, just like in real life, the black hats did some ‘good’ things and the white hats did some ‘bad’ things. And the merging between the two began taking hold. Actually I’ve heard many people defend this as more ‘true to life’. Not convinced however. Without the ‘good’ role models children have little to base their actions on.
Why and how we got to this state of affairs is nearly as interesting as the fact of merged black and white. The problem though is, how do we make sense of this merged reality? What can we trust? Who is worthy of respect? And equally important, what do we do if/when we make a mistake in our loyalties? There are no obvious answers. Which is also part of the problem since we typically don’t enjoy the hard decisions. But we do need to determine what our standards are and what to do when these standards aren’t followed.
All good questions, problems and none easily answered. It can quickly be argued that white hats/black hats never really existed. Maybe. Maybe not. This leads me to the ultimate question regarding this ‘subject’. What do you do when faced with conundrums, layered problems, uncharted (for you) areas, etc.? Recognizing that you are an example, a model for at least one other person – how do you handle this responsibility… are you basically a white or a black hat?
