Alan Watts - The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

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It's me that's wrong.

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ๏ธŽ 2 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ๏ธŽ u/WongWei99 ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ๏ธŽ Jan 22 2021 ๐Ÿ—ซ๏ธŽ replies

I feel like itโ€™s really easy to taking some of his speeches the wrong way

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ๏ธŽ 1 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ๏ธŽ u/Ryan-1- ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ๏ธŽ Jan 22 2021 ๐Ÿ—ซ๏ธŽ replies
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you see the reason you want to be  better is the reason why you aren't   we aren't better because we want to be because  the road to hell is paved with good intentions because all the do-gooders in the  world whether they're doing good for   others or doing it for themselves are  troublemakers on the basis of kindly   let me help you or you'll drown said the  monkey putting the fish safely up a tree we white anglo-saxon protestants  british german american have been on a rampage for the past  hundred or more years to improve the world we have given the benefits  of our culture our religion   our technology to everybody except  perhaps the australian aborigines and we have insisted that they receive the  benefits of our culture even our political   styles our democracy you better  be democratic or we'll shoot you and having conferred these blessings all over  the place we wonder why everybody hates us see because sometimes doing good to others   and even doing good to oneself  is amazingly destructive because it's full of conceit how do  you know what's good for other people   how do you know what's good for you if you  say uh you want to improve then you want   to know what's good for you but obviously you  don't because if you did you would be improved so we don't know it's like  the problem of geneticists   which they face today i went to a meeting  of geneticists not so long ago where they   gathered in a group of philosophers and  theologians and said now look here we need help   we now are on the verge of figuring out  how to breed any kind of human character   we would want to have we can give you saints  philosophers scientists great politicians   anything you want just tell us what  kind of human beings ought we to breed so i said how will those of us  who are genetically unregenerate   make up our minds what genetically  generate people might be because i'm afraid very much that our selection  of virtues may not work it may be like for example   this new kind of high yield grain which is made  and uh which is becoming ecologically destructive when we interfere with the processes  of nature and breed efficient plants   and deficient animals there's always  some way in which we have to pay for it   and i can well see that eugenically  produced human beings might be dreadful we could have a plague of virtuous  people do you realize that any animal   considered in itself is virtuous it does  its thing but in crowds they're awful like a crowd of ants or locusts on the rampage  they're all perfectly good animals but it's just   too much i could imagine a perfectly pesticide  mass of a million saints so i said to these people   look was the only thing you can do just be sure  that a vast variety of human beings is maintained don't please breed us down  to a few excellent types   excellent for what we never know how  circumstances are going to change and how our need for different  kinds of people changes   at one time we may need very  individualistic and aggressive people   at another time we may need very  cooperative teamworking people at another   time we may need people who are full of interest  in dexterous manipulation of the external world   at another time we may need people who explore  into their own psychology and are introspective   there is no knowing but the more varieties and  the more skills we have obviously the better so you see here again the  problem comes out in genetics   we do not really know how to  interfere with the way the world is the way the world actually is is an  enormously complex interrelated organism the same problem arises in medicine because the  body is a very complexly interrelated organism   and if you look at the body in a superficial  way you may see that something wrong with it   is chickenpox and those  spots that itch that come all   out all over the place well you might  say well spots are there cut them off so you kill the bug well then  you find you got real problems   because you have to introduce some bugs to kill  the bug it's like bringing rabbits into australia   and that starts going all over the place and  getting out of hand but then you think well   now wait a minute it wasn't the bugs in the blood  there are bugs all over the place what was wrong   with this person that his blood system suddenly  became vulnerable to those particular bugs   his resistance wasn't up therefore what you should  have given was not an antibiotic but vitamins okay so we're going to build up his  resistance but resistance to what   you may build up resistance to this and this  and this class of bugs but then there's another   one that loves that situation and comes right in  see we always look at the human being medically   in bits and pieces because we have heart  specialists lung specialists bone specialists   nerve specialists and so on and they each see the  human being from their point of view there are a   few generalists but they realize the human body is  so complicated that no one mind can understand it   and furthermore supposing we do succeed in  healing all these people of their diseases what do we then do about the population problem   i mean we've stopped cholera the black bubonic  plague we're getting the better of tuberculosis   we may fix cancer and heart disease then what  will people die of well there let's go on living   will be enormous quantities of us  then we have to fix this birth thing   pills for everybody then we find what are  the effects the side effects of those pills   what are the psychological effects upon men and  women of not breeding uh children in the usual way we don't know and what seems a good thing today or yesterday  like ddt turns out tomorrow to have been a   disaster what seemed in the moral and spiritual  sphere too like great virtues in times past   are easily seen today as hideous evils let's take  for example the inquisition in its own day among   catholics the holy inquisition was regarded  as we today regard the practice of psychiatry   you you see you you feel that in curing a person  of cancer almost anything is justified the most   complex operations the most weird surgery  people suspended for days and days on end   on the end of tubes with x-ray penetration burning  or people undergoing shock treatment people locked   in the colorless monotonous  corridors of mental institutions   in all good faith they knew that  witchcraft and heresy were terrible things awful plagues imperiling  people's souls forever and ever   so any means were justified  to cure people of heresy we don't change we're doing the same  thing today but under different names we can look back at those people and see how  evil that was but we can't see it in ourselves so therefore beware of the chinese philosopher said the highest virtue  is not virtue and therefore really is virtue   but inferior virtue cannot let go of  being virtuous and therefore is not virtue translated in more of a periphrastic way   the highest virtue is not conscious of itself  as virtue and therefore really is virtue   lower virtue is so self-conscious that it's  not virtue in other words when you breathe   you don't congratulate yourself on being virtuous  but breathing is a great virtue it's living when you come out with beautiful eyes  blue or brown or green as the case may be   you don't congratulate yourself for having  grown one of the most fabulous jewels on earth   just eyes and you don't account it a virtue   to see to entertain the miracles of  color and form you say oh that's just but that's real virtue virtue in the sense  of the old sense of the word as strength   is when we talk about the healing  virtue of a plant that's real virtue but the other virtues are stuck on they  their airsides their imitation virtues and they usually create trouble because more diabolical things are done in  the name of righteousness and be assured that   everybody of whatever nationality or political  frame of mind or religion always goes to war   with a sense of complete rightness  the other side is the devil our opponents whether in  china or russia or vietnam   have the same feeling of righteousness about  what they're doing as we have on our side and a plague on both houses because as confucius said the goody  goodies are the thieves of virtue which is the form of our own proverb the  road to hell is paved with good intentions inspired consider this a quick reminder god  playing hide and seek my mission is to find
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Channel: After Skool
Views: 1,147,142
Rating: 4.9250093 out of 5
Keywords: alan watts, virtue, improve yourself, beware of virtue, lao tzu
Id: cegl1BZ-0tI
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Length: 12min 53sec (773 seconds)
Published: Tue Dec 22 2020
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