I watched the YouTube clip of Susan Boyle. She’s the frumpy, cheerful, middle-aged Scottish singer whose appearance on Britain’s Got Talent became a worldwide sensation. What interested me most was the sense of mild shame shown by the judges and the audience for having made a derisive snap judgment about Boyle, based solely on her appearance and demeanor. As one commentator said:
Part of the joy of watching her performance was seeing the obnoxious, smarmy grimaces disappear from the faces of Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan, two of the show’s judges, and seeing the audience shift, in an instant, from tittering condescension to open-mouthed admiration.
Amanda Holden, the third judge, said apologetically to Boyle that her performance had been "the biggest wakeup call ever.”
That’s one of the things that gives me such great hope for humanity: Not that we can be thoughtless and mean and even vicious to each other, but that we can recognize, eventually — and often after inflicting horrendous damage — that we need to change our hearts and minds and the way we conduct our lives.
Some claim that this capacity to learn is innate to our nature; others insist it’s the result of undeserved divine grace. One thing’s for sure: We don’t have enough real data (as opposed to speculation) to enable us to argue the question intelligently.
So for now, we should simply be grateful we have the capacity, and seek out opportunities to exercise it.
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