Evaluate people by their worst qualities, not their best

The capacity for cruelty that some people have should make us rethink our generous assumptions

- MANU JOSEPH

People evaluate actors, singers, writers, directors and sports stars through their best works, even when such works are very few. Some artists are celebrated for a single work; the status of V.V.S. Laxman as a cricket legend rests on a single Test inning. The glory of major public figures comes from their finest moments, not their worst. Even intellectuals evaluate other intellectuals through their best work, while ignoring all the bad stuff.

There is something correct, sensible and generous about this. And it would appear that this is how one must evaluate those who play a role, or will play a role, in our personal or professional lives. We should think the best of a person, consider all that is great about the person and ignore what is rotten. In fact, this is how most people think about family and friends. And this is also the very source of all their miseries.

In evaluating a person who is or would be family, friend or collaborator, one has to consider the worst qualities as the defining characteristics of that person. This may seem like an abstraction, until it leads to a violent tragedy, as in the case of the death of a young woman in Noida a few days ago from severe burns. We do not know yet whether she was set ablaze by someone in her home or if she killed herself. There is no doubt, though, that she was tormented.