sorry for bad english
“fix the devil” makes it sound like: If you are in an abusive relationship, you should just stick with it and continue to suffer and eventually you’ll convince the abuser to stop abusing.
Which is terrible advice, because that’s never going to happen.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going”
not all abusers can change which is true but also not all abusers stay the same which is also true
But that’s so unlikely that NOBODY should ever expect it to happen.
Sometimes guns misfire, but nobody should EVER stand in front of one and expect that to happen.
or how about this: “if you walk through hell long enough you can turn it into heaven”
I like this better than your original quote. As another commenter said, “fixing the devil” can be used as a justification for a victim to stay with their abuser.
Turning hell into heaven can be taken more positively. We’re all products of our environment, but I also think that with effort we can change our environment. But it sure as hell isn’t always easy.
thanks
This is my first time hearing the phrase in sterquiliniis invenitur. I couldn’t find much about it besides it being attributed to Jung, its translation (it will be found in filth) and a Jordan Peterson talk. I didn’t care to watch the latter because although he does seem to engage in real academia sometimes I don’t find him reliable (go figure, I’m on Lemmy. I imagine there’s a small p-value for correlation between lemmings and not being a Peterson fan). Would love to hear more about what it means to you and how it inspired you, and more detail on what you wanted your phrase to convey.
I would quote Paradise Lost by Milton to express this sentiment: “The mind is its own place, and in it self / Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”
