Redemption & Transformation

Malcolm Gladwell has an episode entitled "The Road to Damascus" in which he tells the story of a conflict between the CIA and the public media over an informant that had a resume of terrorism, nicknamed Al Pacino, who had turned over a new leaf due to "pains from his conscious" and worked with the CIA to help take down the very people the informant had worked with.

The story concludes with the media finding out about Al Pacino, publishing a piece that reprimanded the CIA for bringing in the ex-terrorist, and detailing the terrorist's past for added emphasis. Three days later Al Pacino was killed by the people he had previously worked with. The CIA blamed the media for releasing sensitive information, and the media blamed the CIA for not taking correct procedures before "getting in bed with him."

No one thought about Al Pacino.

The takeaway was the neglect of looking at Al Pacino as a human being capable of transformation and redemption dissuaded the CIA from taking the appropriate actions to safeguard him, and blinded the media to the need to protect him. In the case of Al Pacino, that neglect of transformation and redemption led to his death.

It is important therefore that we stay diligent in looking at human beings with compassion and with the capability to transform, because it is not the norm nor is it necessarily easy.

— Jay