Good People Often Do Terrible Things

Greater Good is Almost Always an Excuse for Great Evil

Another my three-year old piece which became even more relevant now.

One of our main delusions is that evil things are usually done by 'bad guys' out of bad intentions such as hatred, greed and so on. So we're expecting danger only from those hypothetical bad guys. But in truth more often than not, it's good people with best intentions who do the most terrible things. And this possibility many of us don't even pause to consider. A pity.

Good intentions are very tricky thing on its own. In Russia there is a good proverb that 'road to Hell is paved with good intentions'. The point of it is not that it's bad to have good intentions per se, but that we're more likely to do bad things out of good intentions, following the logic that 'ends justify the means'. In reality, they almost never do. But we often think they do. So we can do not exactly nice things to people around us if we think that it's for 'their own good'. Examples are multitude. Parents forcing their kids to forsake their artistic hobby because in parents' reasoning their kids could never make living out of it. All for their own good, ofc. Even on individual family levels, it's harmful. Now imagine a political leader forcing on the whole population not exactly nice things for 'their own good'? Got scared yet?

In general, we should be very careful when we think of 'greater good for everyone'. In truth, we oftentimes don't know what's good even for ourselves, making wrong choices which hurt us and our lives. So if we don't often know what's good even for us ourselves, how can we know what's good for everyone? We are imposing our own vision of what's good on them, and this vision is imperfect even for us, and even less so for others. So we might impose on them what's actually pretty bad for them unwittingly. Also, we might not be aware of the whole picture pretty often, having only our perspective in view, and wrongly thinking it to be the full picture. That's why it's very dangerous also to act for 'common good'.

In my view, the best society is when everyone is free to live as they please, and let others live as they please. Be yourself, and let me be myself. Live yourself, and let me live. Don't harm me, but don't try to 'save me' or 'improve me' either, especially if I don't ask for it and don't need it. So many people don't understand those simple truths. I think perhaps if people were able to respect others' opinions and freedoms without imposing what they think 'best' on them, humanity would have avoided so much shit.

I never understood the drive to impose on others your lifestyle and views. But people were doing it all the time during history. Let's remember how Christians and Muslims worldwide imposed their religions on pagans with fire and blood. Pagans never asked to be converted to Christianity or Islam yet they were converted by force and those who refused to, was burned on bonfires or stoned to death. Millions of people were tortured and killed. And all to 'save their souls from Hell', right. Maybe I could decide myself what to do with my soul? Same goes to homosexuality when gay people were forced to forsake their sexuality for 'their own good'.

You might think humanity learned better by now? Nope they don't. New totalitarian Woke ideology had arisen in the West, and its apologists force people to accept their 'social justice' for 'their own good'. COVIDiots scared to death by the virus with low mortality rate are ready to impose on their fellows the most draconian restrictions ever on their freedoms and rights for 'their own safety'. Multi-billionaire Big Tech corporations control your personal data and censor open Internet space also with the best of intentions, to 'fight hate speech and misinformation'. All the Hell broke loose in the West last year, and all out of 'best intentions'.

The saddest part of it is that people still believe the main threat for them to be some bad guys like Trump, some 'evil racists, sexists and bigots'. They refuse to see evil in their neighbor or friend who snitched on them to the authorities for having 'illegal gathering during lockdown'. They refuse to see evil in their fellows who push the mass vaccination for everyone even against their own will. They refuse to see evil in their SJW friends who burn and loot in the name of 'social justice'.

But I want to remind them that the worst things in history, the most terrible massacres, genocides and social injustice, was done not out of 'pure evil' and 'racism' but out of the 'best intentions', 'for the greater good'. Christians and Muslims slaughtered millions of pagans and later 'sodomites and blasphemers and heretics' for 'their own good'. Stalin and Mao murdered more people than Hitler while building their 'bright Communist new world'. Now, the Woke and COVIDiots push political violence and censorship and take your basic freedoms and rights away for your own 'safety' and for the sake of 'social justice'. And you still don't believe that good people are capable of doing terrible things out of the best intentions?