The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

["Robert Eberwein" <robert_eberwein@hotmail.com>]

Lance says,

<calling *good* a relative term does not imply that *good* doesn't <exist. 
yet shades of grey exist, are not imaginary...one can still have <black 
and 
white (or many blacks and whites) with grey. eventually a <black or white 
(or good or bad) becomes a grey (or indifferent), but <perhaps at a 
different point for you than for me. we don't need to have <an absolute 
"black" for us to agree something is black (very likely it <is not, has 
some 
contamination of its opposite within...). this does <not seem silly. it 
seems like a pretty good description of the world

The shade, *Gray* is not imaginary, but we should not forget that it is 
totally dependent on black and white for it’s existence. Black and white 
do 
not need gray. Gray IS black and white.

People take, almost religious, pleasure in pointing out that the three 
hues 
are on an equal standing. They aren’t. This rallying cry,  *Don’t  see 
things only in black and white* has been mouthed for so long- - people 
begin 
to believe that only gray exists. Gray- in itself- doesn’t exist at all!

Lance is making good arguments- I use him as an example. Re-read what he 
says above. It is clear that he has begun to see Gray/Black/White as three 
equal, and distinct entities. He looks, for instance, for the gray in 
black—the black in white. This is relativity in action. It might be true 
that black only exists in relation [absence of] to black. But gray does 
not 
exist on it’s own.

I notice this more and more; people honing their ability to discern 
subtler 
and subtler shades of gray- until they begin to believe that the world is 
made up mostly of grays, and very little black or white; when in fact, 
they 
are always surrounded by blacks and whites that they can no longer see. 
They’ve switched over to a belief-system that tells them that the three 
component of the universe are: Black, White and Gray. This frees the 
person 
from having to make any decision about the blackness or whiteness of 
anything, and he can never be in error.

I’m arguing on, on behalf of a world where we see that black and white is 
everywhere- and we set out to measure the proportions.

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