The case against good and bad Marlee Neel
(Music)
Esteemed members of the jury,
I submit the following words
for immediate and violent execution
and extraction from our vocabularies,
to be locked away forever,
if you would prefer.
These words I present to you
are “good” and “bad.”
These words have served
as treacherous liars
for eternity.
These two words have worked in tandem
to produce vague and bland sentences that have
crippled the creativity of humanity.
These two deceptively tiny words
stifle real description
and honest communication.
Look at them, just sitting
there on this page,
all smug and satisfied with their work.
How dare they?
You serve no purpose in our world,
and we must rid ourselves
of your influence.
We must replace these
two words with the truth,
with phrases that include
adequate and sincere adjectives.
I’ll offer you “radiant,” “stupefying,”
“awful,” “gut-wrenching.”
These choices create clarity and depth.
“Good” and “bad”
only provide gray vagueness.
We must demand color!
We should even use winding similes
and metaphors, where appropriate.
We have to do whatever we can and should
to make our real sentiments known.
“Good” and “bad” will no
longer be our go-to words
that we rely on when we are too afraid
or too languid to express our real thoughts.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I implore
you to deliver a verdict of guilty
and send these words
to their rightful fate.
Now imagine a world
without these two words.
Imagine a world where real
description is required,
digging further into our vocabulary
than just a monosyllabic effort
to get away with not being honest,
impactful, creative.
How does my hair look?
Good. What is that?
A dull attempt not to be honest?
Perhaps my hair looks like a hideous
mess of tangles and bald spots.
Yet someone does not want to be honest,
and offers the quick fix “good,”
to try and mask the truth
and send me hurling into the evening
with a plop of disorganized tresses.
This will not do.
Perhaps my hair looks
like an amazing glossy sculpture
that frames my face perfectly,
and lends an air of magic to the night.
Well, “good” just doesn’t cut it.
I won’t take any more of this
formless, lifeless description.
I will not take these lies,
and neither should you.
A doctor asks you how you feel.
“I feel bad.”
Heresy!
The doctor, based on this paltry report,
could conclude that you have brain
cancer or the flu or rabies.
You owe it to yourself and the possible
misdiagnosis of your life
to be honest about exactly how you feel.
“I feel like a herd of wombats
has taken up in my chest.”
A-ha! There we have it.
An accurate description.
Now the doctor has some real evidence
to work with in order to assist you.
We have become addicted to the numbness
that “good” and “bad” have created.
We have become linguistic slobs,
churning out “good” and “bad”
wherever we are too lazy to allow
our minds to communicate
with creativity and specification.
You look good, you sound
bad, this tastes good,
the weather looks bad.
Lie after lie,
repeating this verbal
gray, this sloshy mush,
this fuzzy picture
that reflects no real truth.
Replace them with grittier, exact terms
that have been buried in our Lexis,
waiting to see daylight.
No longer does the weather
look good or bad,
the weather looks ominous or exhilarating.
Nothing tastes good or bad.
It tastes like pillows of sparkles
or old shoe and dung.
No more of sounding good or bad.
You sound like lilting baby laughter
or ogres marching to war.
Dear God, you do not look good or bad.
You look like a feathery
angel or a morose faun.
Today, you look at these two words,
“good” and “bad,”
examine them closely.
Because behind their seemingly
unassuming visages
reside two deceitful offerings
that smother the truth.
These words are liars.
These words must be stopped.
Remove them from our language so that honesty
can return to our communication.
Ladies and gentlemen,
if I say to you that you
have been a good jury,
you will take the compliment, make
your decision and go on about your day.
But if I say to you that you
are an honorable jury,
and that I hope
your unshakeable determination
to better the vocabulary of humanity
will result in finding
“good” and “bad” guilty,
you will recognize
the ingenuity of this argument
and find “good” and “bad” guilty.
(Music)