Some situations are viewed in black and white; right and wrong. Yet, many people think situations also have a grey area where solutions are not so easily discerned. This is not just about the choices people make, but the thought process they go through to arrive at their decisions.
Submitted for Your Discussion & Consideration
You’re watching TV with the family one evening. It is a weeknight, and you’re all comfortable in the living room eating dinner while watching the evening news.
A news story comes on about a child expelled from your children’s school for wearing a t-shirt with a Wounded Warriors image. The image included a gun, and the school decided that it violated the “zero tolerance” policy.
Do you think that you would agree with the school’s actions? If you disagreed, do you think you would call the school to protest? What do you think you would say to your own children?
How Grey is Too Grey?
The “Shades of Grey” feature is designed to encourage discussion on social situations and consider problems that may be faced in one’s daily life. Solutions may be black or white, right or wrong, or in the grey area. Often people’s actions are in the “grey”, between right and wrong.
Each person makes judgements about a situation and how it impacts them. Most choose the best option for themselves and their families, without crossing lines into wrongdoing.
With the recent fervor over a TV series called Breaking Bad, the show’s situation is offered for consideration.
In Breaking Bad, the lead character (Walter White) finds out that he has cancer. His insurance is not going to cover treatment, and his family faces an uncertain future without him. Despite living a fairly clean life so far, Mr. White reaches some tipping point. He decides to provide for his family by using his scientific knowledge to produce drugs.
He begins “cooking” Methamphetamine to be sold by a former student — Jesse Pinkman — who has lived a less than-clean life.
Certainly on the TV series, things do not go well for Mr. White. His decision leads to high-volume drug distribution, many deaths, and family strife.
With the large fan-base of this show, and so many millions of Americans tuning in to watch Mr. White and Mr. Pinkman do their work — and sometimes to cheer them on — it seems worth putting out the subject for consideration.
Just how far into the grey area is too far? Can you see the thought process Mr. White went through in moving from a good life to criminal activity?
What do you think of the choice Mr. White made? Do you think that the extreme situation called for extreme measures?
If life took a severe turn, do you think that you might move into such a dark grey (or black) space to serve your family?
Issue date: Sept 27–Oct 10, 2013
