Entry 280: Charlatans

Me: I might be a lot of things, but a charlatan is not one of them.
My friend RW: Well then, I guess you shouldn't move to North Carolina.

There is a scene in the 1994* film Pulp Fiction in which John Travolta's character Vince is talking to his drug dealer Lance (played by Eric Stoltz) about how somebody keyed his Malibu, and he tells Lance the following:

I just wish I caught 'em doin' it, ya know?  Oh man, I'd give anything to catch 'em doin' it. It'a been worth his doin' it, if I coulda just caught 'em, you know what I mean?

I love this line, because it's sneakily profound.  Bringing bad people to justice feels good, but that good feeling only exists if the wrongdoing exists.  So is this wrongdoing in some way good in that it ultimately serves a positive purpose, making people feel good?  In broader terms: Would you choose to eliminate all "bad" knowing that with it you would also be destroying much of what we perceive as "good" in this world by comparison?  Or as Satan puts it in the South Park movie:

What is evil anyway?Is there reason to the rhyme?Without evil there could be no good, so it must be good to be evil sometimes.

I bring this up because I came across this article the other day -- The "Food Babe" Blogger Is Full of Shit -- and I found myself absolutely delighting in what a thorough and beautifully-executed take-down it was of this phony the "Food Babe," of whom I had never even heard before reading the article.  I loathe charlatans, and hearing about one getting her comeuppance (kinda) is a total guilty pleasure of mine -- so much so, that I literally felt guilty about it.  I mean, here is a woman who is enriching herself and gaining notoriety by propagating total BS, some of it harmful to society (especially the quasi-anti-vax stuff), and yet, on some level, I'm glad she exists, because reading about her is entertaining, and it makes me feel superior.  Is that right?

I will leave you all to ponder this.  It's a short entry today, because my parents are in town, so I'm spending most my free time hanging out with them.

Until next time ...

*1994 was a great year for movies, by the way, check out this list.  In addition to Pulp Fiction, you've got The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Dumb and Dumber, Clerks, and The Lion King.  That's three all-time classics; three of my favorite stupidly hilarious comedies; and one of the top-grossing animated films ever.  And it's even got a decent secondary class with movies like Quiz Show, Ed Wood, The Hudsucker Proxy, Crooklyn, True Lies, Natural Born Killers, Jason's Lyric, Interview with the Vampire, and Star Trek Generations.  Is 1994 the greatest movie year of my lifetime?