Bad

70% off and “free leather case and spare charger”, seeing a famous brand smartphone being sold at a “rock bottom” price on the online market, my cousin happily bought the whole pair. His plan to surprise his wife on the weekend was suddenly ruined, as soon as he took out the “delicious, nutritious and cheap” product to show off, his wife brought it up to her nose to sniff and then growled at him with the three words “scumbag”!

In the trembling posture of a victim, my brother tried to argue back weakly and pathetically, “What’s mean? Is it the seller or the phone?” “You’re mean, you’re all mean! Only your abnormal intelligence is real.”

Sitting down on the chair, my brother sighed: "Yeah, why do I always get stuck with fake stuff?" So, in addition to the rice cooker, two bottles of shampoo and the multi-function hot pot that he had just bought from the promotional sales group with rewards to "serve" the villagers at the village hall last week, today in his silly collection, my brother had two more "smart" phones. Disappointed. After a few minutes of pinching his hand and blaming himself, my brother honestly asked his wife: "How do I know if it's fake?". His wife was so happy that she even gave him some advice: "If you don't want to get stuck with fake stuff, don't be too real."

Seeing that the situation had calmed down, I took the opportunity to interrupt, “Sister, what is a liar?”. My sister squinted her eyes and retorted, “Are you asking for real or a liar?”. Giving up, I retreated to the backstage to confide in “Uncle Google,” and yes, what is a liar? According to the open-source dictionary Wiktinonari, “A liar is a deceitful act that disregards morality.” But besides liars, there are also liars. That’s right, for the past few decades, liars have also been an adjective used to refer to fake goods. That’s not all, to put it bluntly, liars are a collection of all things that are not… real!

However, if we talk about the word "scum", we should probably also talk about "scum" people. This is the most dangerous "class" in society. It is dangerous because we may not recognize them, and even if we recognize them, we may not have enough knowledge to deal with the countless schemes that they always possess. Scum disguises themselves discreetly in the appearance of ordinary people, even hiding tightly in the cover of decent people. They can be colleagues, neighbors, friends, and it is a disaster if they are the boss, hanging their "scum" over our heads all four seasons. Scum is a kind of invisible, tasteless enemy that infiltrates every corner of society. Scum is the convergence of cunning, insidiousness, scheming, inhumanity and extreme opportunism. Flattery and servility are easily recognizable but least rejected manifestations of scumbags. Around us there are people who live their whole lives without offending anyone… until their goal is achieved, and their conscience turns 180 degrees.

Bad people are very active in creating fake images. Even So Khanh, when appearing, is:

"A young man

"Groomed figure, gentle clothes"

(Nguyen Du)

The "grooming", the "gentleness" on the outside are things used to blind and are themselves bait, a trap to deceive, bribe the gullible, it also swallows the ability to analyze, it is ready to crush the kindness of people. There is a famous saying "Half a loaf of bread is half a loaf of bread, half a truth is a lie". The same goes for being mean, being mean is being mean, being mean cannot be divided into levels like low mean, medium mean, high mean. If you are on guard against mean people, you must always devote your energy to the maximum level. Being deceitful is an instinct, an attribute of mean people. In our work journey, we will inevitably meet people who are closer to our boss than our own flesh and blood, but when the boss “retires”, they turn around like strangers, and their main job when the boss lands is to find a way to become flesh and blood with… the next boss, but that is only the most rudimentary manifestation of meanness. In the vastness of life, meanness is a million times more sophisticated. In a group, we can temporarily divide people into 4 types: The first type is both good and kind (this type is extremely rare), the second type is kind but not good, the third type is good but mean, and the last type is both not good and mean (this type is extremely harmful). That said, to recognize a person’s qualities requires a whole process. Sometimes when we recognize it, it has already taught them dozens of painful lessons.

Last year, in a campaign for the poor that was broadcast live on national television, hundreds of individuals and businessmen registered to donate gifts worth billions of dong. But then, the joy was short-lived. Some of the owners of the promises in front of the flash lens sang the song "let the wind take it away". Poor households are still waiting for the kindness of people who are "both talented and kind" while dozens of plastic signs with billions of this and that have only spiritual value! To put it bluntly, they only take pictures to "make goods" and then leave the signs to run away. Are they mean? I don't know yet, but they are not real! Mean people know how to take advantage of the truth, real people don't know how to take advantage of meanness.

In a completely different story, the public opinion of the whole country was shocked a few days ago when the police of Huong Khe district, Ha Tinh province caught a whole gang of drug-fueled parties in which at least 2 female teachers were still standing on the podium, and many of the rest were current officials in state agencies. So shocking. Just like the case of the teacher allocating targets and slapping or the case of the principal calling a male student to the room to sexually abuse, this time the public opinion called out the name of the specialized ministry. Here and there, there were hints of resignation, the public opinion is really "bad"!

Have you ever been cheated on by someone? No? Well, you may have escaped, but your relatives, your friends, your colleagues…don’t say they have never been victims! So what should we do? Eliminate it or accept living with cheaters like living with cheaters? Tolerating cheaters is ultimately tolerating evil. “When people are born, their nature is inherently good” (The Book of Three Characters). People are born with a good and kind nature, but when they grow up, due to the influence of social life, their temperament changes, and evil can arise. It will be a failure if we are pessimistic, we give up, we ignore evil and cheaters. We may not be able to completely eliminate it, but I think we can limit it. If we dare to be straightforward, if we know how to set an example, if we are willing to forgive, then surely the people around us will change. If you have the chance, please boldly choose for yourself kind leaders. A jerk is scary, but a jerk in power is even more terrifying, and the prevalence of jerks is even more likely to “go into depth”. “Start where you stand. Use what you have. Do what you can” - (Famous quote).

A “steel” fence is urgently needed to prevent bad people from sneaking into public power. In a recent statement, General Secretary and President Nguyen Phu Trong frankly expressed his opinion that “We are determined not to include opportunists in planning”. That’s right, being opportunistic is bad, and being bad becomes worse the more you use it. However, the problem is how to recognize opportunists and eliminate them? It’s very difficult, when they haven’t been exposed, they are all “groomed” and “gentle”. Being bad is really scary, but after all, being real is not as scary as… being fake!

An Nhan