Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-29684190-20191123161006/@comment-35434444-20191128220423

Phantomlink959 wrote: Unintentionally pushing someone to be better by being an absolutely garbage human being with zero redeeming qualities does NOT mean you deserve a second chance.

In fact, he's had three chances; their names are Winter, Weiss, and Whitley.

And he has, thus far, faled all three of them. The first two were so done with his abusive, narcissistic bullshit that they ran away to become super soldiers; and the last one is on the path to becoming a perfect reflection of his sins. (Condemning Jacques may turn out to be for the best, both in allegorical terms and for the purposes of the story. But for now, I feel it's necessary to elaborate on an important principle. Read on and see if you can't use what I'm about to present to you to figure it out for yourself. As a hint, it pertains not to Jacques' culpability but to one's own and all the Taoististic business I've been getting into.)

Yes he is indeed quite out of luck. And before The Lost Fable, I would undoubtedly have agreed with you. But if there is no hope for this the lowliest among us, there is no hope for any of us.

This is a battle not to defeat evil -- Salem cannot be destroyed whatsoever -- but to redeem the human soul. For all intents and purposes, the man you put on trial is none over than yourself.

"People forget that even doctors have moral scruples and that some patient's confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow.

"Yet the patient does not feel himself accepted unless the very worst in him is accepted too. No one can bring this about by mere words. It comes only through reflection and through the doctor's attitude towards his own dark side. If the doctor wants to guide another or even accompany him a step of the way, he must feel with that person's psyche. He never feels it when he passes judgement. Whether he puts his judgments into words or keeps them to himself makes not the slightest difference.

"To take the opposite position and agree with the patient out of hand is also of no use. Feeling only comes through unprejudiced objectivity. This almost sounds like a scientific precept and it may be confused with a purely intellectual, abstract attitude of mind, but what I mean is something quite different. It is a human quality. A kind of deep respect for the facts, for the man who suffers from them, and for the riddle of such a man's life. The truly religious person has this attitude. He knows that God has brought many strange and inconceivable things to pass. And seeks in the most curious ways to enter a man's heart. He therefore witnesses in everything the unseen presence of the divine will. This is what I mean by unprejudiced objectivity. It is a moral achievement on the part of the doctor who ought not let himself be repelled by sickness and corruption.

"We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate. It oppresses. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow sufferer. I do not mean to say that we must never pass judgment when we desire to help and improve. But if the doctor wishes to help a human being he must be able to accept him as he is. And he can do this in reality only when he has accepted himself as he is.

"Perhaps this sounds very simple. But simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple. And so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one's whole outlook on life.

"That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ, all these are undoubtedly great virtues. 'What I do unto the least of my brethren that I do unto Christ.'

"But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yeah the very fiend himself -- that these are within me? That I myself stand in need of the arms of my own kindness? That I myself am the enemy that must be loved? -- What then?

"Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed. There is then no more talk of love and long suffering."

"We say to the brother within us -- 'begone!' and condemn and rage against ourselves. We hide him from the world. We deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves. Had it been God himself who drew near to us in this despicable form we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed."

-- Carl Jung