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- Hillary Clinton as a Faustian Case in Point
Hillary Clinton as a Faustian Case in Point
Like many others I’ve been trying to extract lessons from November 8th.
I think one of them is that it doesn’t matter how good you are, or how much you want to improve the world, you don’t deal with the devil.
I don’t know Hillary’s soul, but let’s assume it was pure and good when she was a young lawyer. Let’s assume she really did want to help women and children and families more than anything.
And let us also say that as the decades progressed she started making small sacrifices. She made some promises to some banks. She took some donations. She did this. She did that.
But the whole time, every step of the way, she was sort of grimacing when she did these things. Because she’s good. But she’d tell herself that it was worth it because if she wanted to be able to do the most good she’d have to be powerful.
So she continued to play the game, until she became one of the best at it.
But then, at the end of the game, someone shined the light on all the stuff she’d done over her years. All the bad stuff. All the shady stuff.
But don’t they understand that those were necessary steps? Things she had to do in order to be able to enact the kind of change that needed to happen?
Unfortunately, the people didn’t just see the good anymore. They saw stains. They saw compromise. They saw a lack of integrity.
In the end she faced the worst battle of her career, and she lost an honesty and integrity battle. The people judged her as damaged goods.
Just as with Faust, she lost in the end. The choices they made ultimately caught up to them, and they paid the ultimate price.
I feel sorry for her in a way, but I also think it’s a great lesson to learn. If you wish to remain intact as a good person there is only so far you can stray before you can’t get back on the path.
Learn from her mistake so you can avoid making it yourself.