When a saint sins,

it’s a scandal

when the devil does a good thing, overdelivers, reforms,

what an uplifting story

 

I suppose it’s some kind of relativism which causes this bias

To measure anything — we must measure it against something

Why not measure to the closest thing

Thus measure the saint against the saint

And the devil against the devil

 

And thus if saint does anything less than saintly — it’s a big delta

It looks like a shocking debasement, devolution, corruption

And when devil does anything NOT devilish — it’s a big delta too,

We wonder: “has he changed”

We wonder: “maybe he wasn’t so bad to begin with”

We wonder: “what if he can transmute all this potential, power, into good?”

Makes for a good story too

 

Indeed that’s another bias that we have

We like stories a little bit too much

Stories all neatly walk us through a problem, from the beginning to end, from action to consequence, from input to output

With just enough chaos and variability and adventures to make it look more realistic

Except it’s only superficial

Because the story has preordained beginning and end

Real life doesn’t. It’s entirely variable and quite chaotic

But we’d rather have stories

 

We’d rather have stories

We’d rather take the devil!

We’d rather make friends with the devil, than meet another saint

 

We even root for the devil

Success and goodness and beauty and integrity are too boring, too common, nothing exceptional about them

We’re unexceptional too and what did it get us?

So we fantasize, fetishize the unusual

Including the dark

“Maybe there’s a dark secret”

“Perhaps it’s time for a drastic change!”

 

And thus of course we’re biased,

We fail to judge everyone and everything by the same standard

We think we do

But subconsciously we have different standards for them

Each side has different standards,

A different story

 

Now, let me just add

If you hate the devil already — you’re not judging him by the same standard either

You expect all but the worst, from the start

Which again, is most people

They already made up their mind — and when they hate someone — that someone can’t do no right

 

But

Once you begin to cosy up to the devil

You at the danger of this nasty bias

Where you’ll brush off their flaws and sins,

“it’s just who they are”

and you’re loud their merits, like it’s the second coming

because it’s a good fucking story,

and it’s RELATIVELY far more unusual, and impressive, than more decency from the decent