Dark Roast, Michael Vick and Abelard's Ethica

Three gulps in, the dark brew has kicked in and by now we all know that Michael Vick has received a two-year deal to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. Shock? Disgust? Elation? Reservation?

These are but some of the feelings I am sure many are feeling, but I ask you to consider what follows:

--What better team to play for than the "City of Brotherly Love"?

--Humans have rights too, no.

--We save the whales, the ecosystems, the planet and yet spite, spit and spat against our human neighbor.

Michael Vick, through our legislative branches, has since served his sentence. Some think, it was not long enough. Does the man deserve a break, a chance?

Forget WWJD (for now), and consider What Will Vick Do? He might want to turn to Abelard here:

Sed profecto sicut Deo uel angelis peccata nostra sine aliqua pena doloris displicent, eo uidelicet quod illa non approbant quae mala considerant, ita et tunc nobis illa displicebunt in quibus deliquimus.

[But surely, just as without any of the pain of sorrow our sins displease God or the angels through the fact that they do not approve what they consider to be evil, in the same way also what we have done wrong will then displease us].

For Vick to truly sense and face some semblance of remorse, he will have to be displeased with the self, that part that tolerated such cruel and aberrant behavior in the first place. After all, is this not what is considered a sin, a transgression.

We ALL do our own version of it, and so we deflate the ego and subjugate the id into confession. We also need a little sabiduria, [wisdom] to know non ignoramus astutias Sathanae [we are not ignorant of Satan's devices].

Animals (in general), like its human counterpart seek co-existence and not subjugation, cruelty and even death. What Vick did was inexcusable; what Vick will do in the progressive present is now under a microscope. I wonder if we will embrace him once more? We have done less before, and more.