Perpetually bad people can (and do) do good. That's what makes them so destructive, because they gain trust that way. Perpetually good people do not do persistent bad.
Lance ruined people financially, went after them in court.
If a billionaire donates $500 million to the hungry, but smothers 5 children, he's not a great philanthropist; he's a murderer.
Benefit and sorrow are not a balance sheet where, as long as positives outweigh negatives, it's all okay in the end.
Lance did not simply deceive. He attacked. A child behaves that way, you can forgive and continue to observe and teach and they will grow out of that abject selfishness that allowed them to do that to others. If they don't progress/grow and remain that way as adults, they are sociopaths.
Sociopathy is incurable. Adults cannot grow a conscience. If they didn't arrive to adulthood with one, they won't ever truly have one. They are chameleons not empathizers. The only, ONLY, way they might is through a genuine revelation of faith because that is the purest expression of otherness. Faith and goodness are not proven through good acts but doing good acts necessarily flow from faith and goodness.
When adults like Lance Armstrong "apologize" and "seek forgiveness", it is almost always when caught/trapped by their lies and not truly of their own sincere desire to repent.
I look to see whether those asking forgiveness and mercy do so because they feel bad for themselves (selfish sociopathy) or they feel bad for those whom they hurt (developing empathy). I have been both at different points in my life. I have dealt with both types in my life. The truly empathetic are worthy of forgiveness and it should be given.
The selfish/sociopathic?
"Great Turnus sank, his knee bent beneath him, under the blow.
Lance ruined people financially, went after them in court.
If a billionaire donates $500 million to the hungry, but smothers 5 children, he's not a great philanthropist; he's a murderer.
Benefit and sorrow are not a balance sheet where, as long as positives outweigh negatives, it's all okay in the end.
Lance did not simply deceive. He attacked. A child behaves that way, you can forgive and continue to observe and teach and they will grow out of that abject selfishness that allowed them to do that to others. If they don't progress/grow and remain that way as adults, they are sociopaths.
Sociopathy is incurable. Adults cannot grow a conscience. If they didn't arrive to adulthood with one, they won't ever truly have one. They are chameleons not empathizers. The only, ONLY, way they might is through a genuine revelation of faith because that is the purest expression of otherness. Faith and goodness are not proven through good acts but doing good acts necessarily flow from faith and goodness.
When adults like Lance Armstrong "apologize" and "seek forgiveness", it is almost always when caught/trapped by their lies and not truly of their own sincere desire to repent.
I look to see whether those asking forgiveness and mercy do so because they feel bad for themselves (selfish sociopathy) or they feel bad for those whom they hurt (developing empathy). I have been both at different points in my life. I have dealt with both types in my life. The truly empathetic are worthy of forgiveness and it should be given.
The selfish/sociopathic?
"Great Turnus sank, his knee bent beneath him, under the blow.
The Rutulians rose up, and groaned, and all the hills around
re-echoed, and, far and wide, the woods returned the sound.
He lowered his eyes in submission and stretched out his right hand:
‘I have earned this, I ask no mercy’ he said,
‘seize your chance. If any concern for a parent’s grief
can touch you (you too had such a father, in Anchises)
I beg you to pity Daunus’s old age and return me,
or if you prefer it my body robbed of life, to my people.
You are the victor, and the Ausonians have seen me
stretch out my hands in defeat: Lavinia is your wife,
don’t extend your hatred further.’ Aeneas stood, fierce
in his armour, his eyes flickered, and he held back his hand:
and even now, as he paused, the words began to move him
more deeply, when high on Turnus’s shoulder young Pallas’s
luckless sword-belt met his gaze, the strap glinting with its familiar
decorations, he whom Turnus, now wearing his enemy’s emblems
on his shoulder, had wounded and thrown, defeated, to the earth.
As soon as his eyes took in the trophy, a memory of cruel grief,
Aeneas, blazing with fury, and terrible in his anger, cried:
‘Shall you be snatched from my grasp, wearing the spoils
of one who was my own? Pallas it is, Pallas, who sacrifices you
with this stroke, and exacts retribution from your guilty blood.’
So saying, burning with rage, he buried his sword deep
in Turnus’s breast: and then Turnus’s limbs grew slack
with death, and his life fled, with a moan, angrily, to the Shades."
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