He also said to the disciples, “There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. 2 And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’ 3 And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’ 5 So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ 7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ 8 The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. 9 And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.
Luke 16:1-9, ESV
At some point in college I watched all three of the Ocean’s movies, those of George Clooney putting together and deploying an elite team of casino robbers, in one sitting. There’s certainly a bit of cognitive dissonance involved in rooting for professional thieves,* but the filmmakers do their best to smooth this over by (1) portraying the casino owners as really bad dudes, and, more importantly, by (2) focusing on the purely technical aspects of robbing casinos.
Indeed, the Ocean’s trilogy works because one can appreciate the art and science of robbing casinos without signing off on the morality thereof. The same principle holds true for other kinds of high-cognitive (and usually nonviolent) crime – see, for instance, Catch Me if You Can, which traces the exploits of scam genius Frank Abagnale. In general, it’s hard to suppress admiration for ingenuity, even when it’s employed in the service of bad ends.
