#when you consider that jimmy's resentment of howard comes from the fact that he thinks howard was the one that didn't want to hire him

[sunkcost]

yeah kind of obsessed with the irony of chuck telling jimmy there are no shortcuts in the same scene that he has this line about false principles. i guess it would make sense that he can’t believe jimmy takes being a lawyer seriously or that he’s willing work hard if he’s coming from the assumption that there’s a level playing field where hard work yields equal levels of success, that your success is always indicative of the work you put in. it’s made clear pretty early on that jimmy does, in fact, work very hard at his job and does take it very seriously, even while barely getting paid, but that doesn’t erase the fact that he’s broke and going into debt. it’s easy for chuck to say money’s beside the point when he’s not the one facing that reality (he doesn’t have to because jimmy is willing to try to resolve it for him, for better or worse). jimmy’s “shortcut” with the kettlemens came as a result of his desperation in response to this situation, not from his not being unwilling to work hard. 

it’s just so perfect to have them show jimmy trying to resolve both of their financial situations while chuck insists that the money isn’t an important factor in his cashing out of hhm, and then telling jimmy there are no shortcuts and money is beside the point in regards to him establishing his own law practice, and therefore tying up both situations in this idea of false principles. so many of chuck’s shortcomings are based in his inflexible adherence to his principles and his failure to recognize that some of those principles are more ideals than realities. sure, in a perfect world jimmy could just keep his nose to the grindstone until he gets clients, but there are actualities to contend with in the meantime. it’s just more complicated than chuck’s principles give room for, and so his criticisms of jimmy are never really on the mark. they’re always oversimplifications because his worldview won’t leave room for nuance. “your argument is built on quicksand, therefore it collapses.” and as long as we’re talking about fallacies, i think that the false equivocation of shortcuts and laziness kind of factors in here too. whatever you want to say about jimmy’s schemes, they clearly take an absurd amount of time, effort, and planning. they never come from him being too lazy to do things the ‘right’ way, but rather his frustration over the dead ends that come from doing things the ‘right’ way on a fundamentally uneven playing field, where hard work often doesn’t yield equal results. there's also kind of an incredible double irony in the fact that chuck quotes that as a reflection of his principles and the value he places in the purity of the law, when the rigidity of those same principles have created his blind spot, a fallacy in his own argument. it’s such a succinct display of his unwitting hypocrisy.