You Deserve It!

Or maybe you don’t, but that’s not the point

Clint Eastwood as William Munny in Unforgiven: “We all have it coming, kid.”

In the climactic scene of the 1992 western, Unforgiven, William Munny (played by Clint Eastwood) holds a rifle to the chest of a supine and wounded Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman), the corrupt sheriff who had tortured and killed Munny’s friend and partner. Little Bill looks up from the floor and pleads his case. “I don’t deserve this — to die like this. I was building a house.”

For almost two hours, the film’s tension has built to the confrontation between these two legendary actors, and Munny’s simple reply proves every bit as powerful as the muzzle blast that follows.

With a classic Eastwood growl, Munny answers Little Bill: “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”

“Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.” -Clint Eastwood as William Munny in Unforgiven

I think about this scene all the time. You’d expect Munny to point out that Little Bill, after the horrible acts he has committed, totally deserves what’s coming to him. Instead, he delivers a profound insight into a fallacy of human logic: the disinterested universe cares little for the concept of deservingness or the plans we’re making, no matter how much we believe it should.

Before I write much more, I’ll acknowledge that this is a massive, complex topic, and I…