A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND: Following, five reasons the phrase “a good person” is bad and wrong, and often put into the service of evil. (No, I’m serious. The fact that this is a hobbyhorse of mine doesn’t make it false!)

1. It divides the world into good people and bad people. “While there is a criminal element, I am in it. While there is a lower class, I am of it. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free” (Eugene Debs; from memory, thus perhaps slightly misremembered). The “good person” phrase feeds complacency in those who think themselves good and despair in those who think themselves bad. Both of these responses are variations on the sin of pride.

2. It locates goodness in the wrong place: in the putatively “good person.” This very cool article from Catholic Online (on hypocrisy) administers a swift slap upside the head: “It is Jesus who makes us good, not our ‘goodness’ that makes us Christians.” And Pelagianism? Is, like, the least hopeful heresy ever.

3. It’s almost always used the way “devout Catholic” is used: “I’m a good person, so I should get to do whatever I want.” I pay my taxes! I’m in the PTA! So… Catholic morality doesn’t apply to me. Yeah, no.

4. It cuts us off from the particular insights into human nature that are available to those who know that they are not “good people.” It tends, always, to valorize conformity over alienation, go-along-to-get-along over radical personal transformation, and good-enough over sublime.

5. It sets us up for disappointment and cynicism when the “good people” are caught with their hands in somebody’s till or somebody’s knicks.

I think I actually hate this phrase more than I hate the bloodless, trivializing, politician phrase “the abortion issue.” Growl!!!!