Everyone Likes a Good Henchdog
But Don’t Let It Bite Through Your Brand
Just finished watching “Trolley,” a 16-part Korean TV series over on Netflix, and it’s a wonderful examination of what happens when people fall prey to the delusion of singular saviorhood—when you convince yourself there’s only one possible guy for the work that must not fail.
Excellently cast and finely acted, there’s really no ambiguity. Potentially saving five by definitely killing one—the classic moral dilemma posed by the thought experiment referenced in the title—is shown as what it is—a loathsome choice that truly good people will refuse to make.
Two bad people insisted on making it, though, and the unfolding of the depths of the bankruptcy of their souls and the courage of the three forced to be their antagonists was worth watching.
Evil is so truly—in paraphrasing the English theologian William Law—a willful turning away from the Good, however one may conceive of it, and “Trolley” shows what happens when stronger people put their faith in weaker ones. A chief of staff hung his political future on a man destined by his own flaws ultimately to fail, and committed an ultimate horror in that service.
I got a little taste of that sort of thing this past weekend, in the happy realms of cyberspace, and it was painful watching someone, whose declared mission is to protect the innocent and fight against emotional and physical abuse, take great glee in a friend’s attempts at savaging, online, in service of this, a woman for having viewpoints not in complete agreement with their own.
It is very easy, in the conviction that some people are above criticism because of the importance of their work, or in the belief that they hold a unique perspective on certain dreadful realities, to feel a blood-hunger for letting the dogs out on those not so persuaded. The dogs are always ready, and glad of permission to act on their true natures. But trashing one’s ethics for a moment’s emotional satisfaction is eventually a costly bargain.
Interesting! Maybe I'll give this a shot!
Can someone please explain the story and the comments to me? I am without a frame of reference.