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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

"That which is right, just, and true can still prevail."

Reading this - So Jonah Lehrer Has Apologized. For Money. - and it reminded me of guys who've done wrong in the sex abuse scandal - Bernard Law, Roger Mahony, and yes, the pope - but who have never admitted actually doing any wrong. Yes, they've apologized, but not for what they themselves have done, only for the situation in general.

I kind of get this - in my family, once you had done something bad and had admitted it, there was no coming back from that, no way to redeem yourself, no way to not "be" bad. It took me a long time (and I'm still working on it) to come to the conclusion that, paradoxically, unless you admit that you're responsible, rather than avoiding the badness, you're forever stuck with it.

I've been re-watching Stargate: The Ark of Truth and there's a scene where Teal'c, who had been a commander in the armies of the evil Goa'uld but then joined the good guys, talks to Tomin, who had commanded the armies of the evil Ori but who has now seen the light. As I listened, I thought of Law and Mahony and the pope and of how this bit of dialogue wouldn't touch them because they don't think they've done anything wrong ...




4 Comments:

Anonymous Richard said...

Interesting. St. Paul must have had a conversation like that.(warning: from my blackberry)

9:39 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

Hi Richard,

This time the comment was ok - maybe the spam filter has "learned" you aren't spam ;)

The interesting thing about the movie was that they were searching for an ancient device, the Ark of Truth, that could make people "see" what was true, so all they had to do was expose the bad guys to the device and they all changed their minds. A strange idea - it would mean there was an objective "truth" and using the device would bring up all kinds of free will issues.

11:42 AM  
Anonymous Richard said...

OK I'm intrigued, I guess I'll have to put it on my Netflix list. I think public apologies (a la Armstrong, et al)are usually a no win. Like the guy in the clip, best just to go forth and do the best you can. Oh, and its good not to be spam!

2:00 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

Warning - the movie might be hard to understand if you haven't been watching the Stargate series.

2:19 PM  

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