Subtitles
you see the reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren't 00:00:08
we aren't better because we want to be because the road to hell is paved with good intentions 00:00:13
because all the do-gooders in the world whether they're doing good for 00:00:22
others or doing it for themselves are troublemakers on the basis of kindly 00:00:26
let me help you or you'll drown said the monkey putting the fish safely up a tree 00:00:31
we white anglo-saxon protestants british german american 00:00:42
have been on a rampage for the past hundred or more years to improve the world 00:00:48
we have given the benefits of our culture our religion 00:00:56
our technology to everybody except perhaps the australian aborigines 00:01:00
and we have insisted that they receive the benefits of our culture even our political 00:01:07
styles our democracy you better be democratic or we'll shoot you 00:01:11
and having conferred these blessings all over the place we wonder why everybody hates us 00:01:20
see because sometimes doing good to others 00:01:28
and even doing good to oneself is amazingly destructive 00:01:31
because it's full of conceit how do you know what's good for other people 00:01:37
how do you know what's good for you if you say uh you want to improve then you want 00:01:42
to know what's good for you but obviously you don't because if you did you would be improved 00:01:49
so we don't know it's like the problem of geneticists 00:01:58
which they face today i went to a meeting of geneticists not so long ago where they 00:02:02
gathered in a group of philosophers and theologians and said now look here we need help 00:02:06
we now are on the verge of figuring out how to breed any kind of human character 00:02:12
we would want to have we can give you saints philosophers scientists great politicians 00:02:18
anything you want just tell us what kind of human beings ought we to breed 00:02:27
so i said how will those of us who are genetically unregenerate 00:02:34
make up our minds what genetically generate people might be 00:02:41
because i'm afraid very much that our selection of virtues may not work it may be like for example 00:02:49
this new kind of high yield grain which is made and uh which is becoming ecologically destructive 00:03:00
when we interfere with the processes of nature and breed efficient plants 00:03:11
and deficient animals there's always some way in which we have to pay for it 00:03:15
and i can well see that eugenically produced human beings might be dreadful 00:03:20
we could have a plague of virtuous people do you realize that any animal 00:03:28
considered in itself is virtuous it does its thing but in crowds they're awful 00:03:37
like a crowd of ants or locusts on the rampage they're all perfectly good animals but it's just 00:03:45
too much i could imagine a perfectly pesticide mass of a million saints so i said to these people 00:03:50
look was the only thing you can do just be sure that a vast variety of human beings is maintained 00:04:02
don't please breed us down to a few excellent types 00:04:11
excellent for what we never know how circumstances are going to change 00:04:16
and how our need for different kinds of people changes 00:04:22
at one time we may need very individualistic and aggressive people 00:04:29
at another time we may need very cooperative teamworking people at another 00:04:34
time we may need people who are full of interest in dexterous manipulation of the external world 00:04:40
at another time we may need people who explore into their own psychology and are introspective 00:04:46
there is no knowing but the more varieties and the more skills we have obviously the better 00:04:53
so you see here again the problem comes out in genetics 00:05:02
we do not really know how to interfere with the way the world is 00:05:06
the way the world actually is is an enormously complex interrelated organism 00:05:12
the same problem arises in medicine because the body is a very complexly interrelated organism 00:05:23
and if you look at the body in a superficial way you may see that something wrong with it 00:05:30
is chickenpox and those spots that itch that come all 00:05:35
out all over the place well you might say well spots are there cut them off 00:05:39
so you kill the bug well then you find you got real problems 00:05:46
because you have to introduce some bugs to kill the bug it's like bringing rabbits into australia 00:05:52
and that starts going all over the place and getting out of hand but then you think well 00:05:59
now wait a minute it wasn't the bugs in the blood there are bugs all over the place what was wrong 00:06:03
with this person that his blood system suddenly became vulnerable to those particular bugs 00:06:08
his resistance wasn't up therefore what you should have given was not an antibiotic but vitamins 00:06:15
okay so we're going to build up his resistance but resistance to what 00:06:22
you may build up resistance to this and this and this class of bugs but then there's another 00:06:28
one that loves that situation and comes right in see we always look at the human being medically 00:06:31
in bits and pieces because we have heart specialists lung specialists bone specialists 00:06:41
nerve specialists and so on and they each see the human being from their point of view there are a 00:06:48
few generalists but they realize the human body is so complicated that no one mind can understand it 00:06:54
and furthermore supposing we do succeed in healing all these people of their diseases 00:07:02
what do we then do about the population problem 00:07:09
i mean we've stopped cholera the black bubonic plague we're getting the better of tuberculosis 00:07:12
we may fix cancer and heart disease then what will people die of well there let's go on living 00:07:18
will be enormous quantities of us then we have to fix this birth thing 00:07:26
pills for everybody then we find what are the effects the side effects of those pills 00:07:32
what are the psychological effects upon men and women of not breeding uh children in the usual way 00:07:38
we don't know 00:07:46
and what seems a good thing today or yesterday like ddt turns out tomorrow to have been a 00:07:50
disaster what seemed in the moral and spiritual sphere too like great virtues in times past 00:07:56
are easily seen today as hideous evils let's take for example the inquisition in its own day among 00:08:06
catholics the holy inquisition was regarded as we today regard the practice of psychiatry 00:08:14
you you see you you feel that in curing a person of cancer almost anything is justified the most 00:08:24
complex operations the most weird surgery people suspended for days and days on end 00:08:31
in the colorless monotonous corridors of mental institutions 00:08:49
in all good faith they knew that witchcraft and heresy were terrible things 00:08:55
awful plagues imperiling people's souls forever and ever 00:09:03
so any means were justified to cure people of heresy 00:09:08
we don't change we're doing the same thing today but under different names 00:09:15
we can look back at those people and see how evil that was but we can't see it in ourselves 00:09:23
so therefore beware of 00:09:32
the chinese philosopher said the highest virtue is not virtue and therefore really is virtue 00:09:41
but inferior virtue cannot let go of being virtuous and therefore is not virtue 00:09:50
translated in more of a periphrastic way 00:09:58
the highest virtue is not conscious of itself as virtue and therefore really is virtue 00:10:03
lower virtue is so self-conscious that it's not virtue in other words when you breathe 00:10:09
you don't congratulate yourself on being virtuous but breathing is a great virtue it's living 00:10:19
when you come out with beautiful eyes blue or brown or green as the case may be 00:10:29
you don't congratulate yourself for having grown one of the most fabulous jewels on earth 00:10:36
just eyes and you don't account it a virtue 00:10:43
to see to entertain the miracles of color and form you say oh that's just 00:10:48
but that's real virtue virtue in the sense of the old sense of the word as strength 00:10:57
is when we talk about the healing virtue of a plant that's real virtue 00:11:02
but the other virtues are stuck on they their airsides their imitation virtues 00:11:10
and they usually create trouble 00:11:19
because more diabolical things are done in the name of righteousness and be assured that 00:11:23
everybody of whatever nationality or political frame of mind or religion always goes to war 00:11:30
with a sense of complete rightness the other side is the devil 00:11:38
our opponents whether in china or russia or vietnam 00:11:46
have the same feeling of righteousness about what they're doing as we have on our side 00:11:53
and a plague on both houses 00:12:00
because as confucius said the goody goodies are the thieves of virtue 00:12:06
which is the form of our own proverb the road to hell is paved with good intentions 00:12:16
inspired consider this a quick reminder god playing hide and seek my mission is to find 00:12:46