What's a Tray of Lasagna Worth to You?

In 2018, Megan Phelps-Roper gave a TED Talk in which she detailed her decision to leave the Westboro Baptist Church, the family church she was born and raised in.

She spoke of standing on street corners and outside military funerals holding inflammatory signs that said things like “gays are worthy of death” or, one of their most infamous, “God hates fags”. If you’ve seen the excellent Louis Theroux documentary, you’ll remember some of the most striking moments: the violent, hate-filled signs; or the small children, too young to write, holding them.

In her talk, Phelps-Roper speaks of the people on Twitter who engaged her in conversation and debate, and whose empathy and thoughtful contributions allowed her to take a beat, to stop shouting at other people long enough to think about what they were really saying.

These conversations caused her to experience a sort of revelation: she realised, she says, that every one of us thinks what we are doing is the right thing, that our belief is the right belief, that our righteousness is the right kind of righteousness. In other words, the majority of humans are good, and are doing what they believe is in the best interest not just of themselves but of their friends, families and peers.

It’s something I believe, too; with few notable exceptions (serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, warmongers like Putin and Netanyahu, possibly also Elon Musk, who seems to exist only to sow discord and make money, all women are great so don’t even suggest one), people, and their motivations, are inherently good. Sometimes I feel I have to believe it, otherwise I’d want to throw myself off this mortal coil, but I do believe it, really.

There are moments, though, when my belief is tested, and one of those came on Saturday, in the seventh row of screen 17 in AMC Theatres, as I suffered through all 141 minutes of Garfield, starring one probably-genuinely-evil-at-his-core Chris Pratt.