Everybody is a mix of good and bad. And we should always be willing to recognize both. Just as the good does not “excuse” the bad, the bad does not eliminate the good. It feels like we are less willing to elevate people on to a pedestal where we refuse to see the bad things about them than we used to be; and that is a good thing. But we should also not decide that people are irredeemable and incapable of doing good. Evil acts are not washed away by good deeds, and it is a good idea to remind people of them when praising good deeds. But that does not mean that we shouldn’t praise good deeds no matter who does them.
This speech is very much of a pace with his speech about the “broken men,” that he grew up around. Perhaps it was growing up around former Nazis that helped him to see the complex mix of good and evil within individuals, rather than consign people as either “good,” or “evil.”
I’ve thought that Zelensky should try to press the idea that THIS time, it is the Ukrainians that are defending their homes from invaders, just as Soviets did in Stalingrad. But THIS time, the Putinites are playing the invaders.
