Monday, November 23, 2009

The Flight Of The Bumblebee


Bumblebee is perhaps the person I feel the closest to in the group so far.  He seemed like a guy who had his head screwed on tightly, and in a group where passions flare high and bright, that gave me some comfort. The fact that he was a were-wolf also influenced my trust, as I felt we had our feral nature in common- even if he could suppress his and I could never be anything but what I am.
I was surprised, to say the least, to find out that there was more to him than met the eye. Aside from being a werewolf he also turned out to be
  1. An insect-man alien from a hive-like society
  2. Taking DNA samples of us and others around Millennium City without our knowledge or consent!
It turns out that Bumblebee is part of a dying race, and he was using the genetic material he gathered in experiments to save the aforementioned hive. While a pragmatist or a Machiavellian might say that what he did was excusable because it was done with a noble intention, whatever the means, I took a different route: I knew that Bumblebee was not a bad person, but his pragmatist approach caused him to do something that was undeniably wrong. At most he was a good person with a very misguided approach, who was intent on doing something right.
Unfortunately, as Dr. Gnosis taught me, the ends can’t be divorced from the means, and vice versa- the end cannot justify the means because it is a product of them. His indiscretion came to light when an enemy of his sought to use the information as a means of turning the group against him.  I was there and confronted Bumblebee with the information, and I contacted Leonidas to inform him of the situation as soon as I had obtained Bumblebee’s assurance that he would assume responsibilities and come clean on the matter.
I felt bad for him when the reactions one would expect from the group caught up with him. Kablooey (who is no longer with the team for reasons relevant to her name) was very hostile, Pinocchio outright threatened him and chastised him (the aforementioned murderer, you might recall, suddenly taking a moral stance? If we speak of having no ground under your feet to criticize others, Pinocchio is floating in space ) and there was a consistent outpour of emotion. Bumblebee would have quit, if it hadn’t been for Leonidas’ order to remain within the group as part of his probation. Public backlash was no less furious and a lot of damage control had to be done. In the end, I told Bumblebee that I gave him permission to use my D.N.A. for his goals, as firstly he had suffered his just deserts for his actions, and secondly because one can never have enough of a good thing *rimshot.*
It was a personal disappointment in my fellow team-mates as well. I had expected indignation, yes, but I had also expected more self-control and a more focused approach. Instead  I saw more of the same kind of pack mentality I have always rejected. I felt for Bumblebee but I knew that whatever I might say might be misinterpreted as a “but he had good intentions!” appeal because of the lack of mental clarity in the group- as well as for the fact that Bumblebee had done something untoward and was receiving the consequences of his actions. I simply wonder whether such hostility is warranted towards the misguided, and why such tolerance is given to the clearly evil such as Pinocchio. It seems to me that the values by which they are weighing things seem to have different standards depending on who is being weighed.

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