Hell is paved with good intentions
Cistercian abbot Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 – 1153)
Meaning #1
Promises and plans must be put into action, otherwise they are useless.
Meaning #2
People always try to think that they are doing good even when it is obvious that the methods are wrong.
Clause #1
Movie The Pharmacist / Le Pharmacien de garde (2003)
Yann Lazarrec (Vincent Perez) seems to be a normal man. He’s a pharmacist who soothes mankind with his potions and fights to protect the earth against the polluters who abuse it. Lazarrec is full of good intentions but we know that the road to hell is also paved with them…
The pharmacist has become a serial killer, who murder industrial magnates for their practices which harm the planet. He becomes friend with François Barrier (Guillaume Depardieu) a staunch environmentalist, but a cop above anything else.
Clause #2
How plastic bags were supposed to help the planet
Sten Gustaf Thulin
Plastic bags were invented to save the planet, according to the son of Swedish engineer Sten Gustaf Thulin who created them in 1959. The bags were developed as an alternative to paper bags, which were considered bad for the environment because they resulted in forests being chopped down (1).
Clause #3
Idealistic, utopic worldview in the hands of decision-makers and influencers
As we read in the novel by Mika Waltari “The Egyptian”, the most of sorrows and losses of common people in the whole country were induced by their pacifist pharaoh Akhenaten.
Akhenaten is an illustration of the destructiveness of well-intentioned blindness; he is a tragic character and this blindness is his tragic flaw, by which he causes the destruction of his own kingdom – much like King Lear (2).
As you may understand, the pharaoh Akhenaten is presented as a collective character, and that is clearly seen and described by the critics of the novel. The same things go round and round.
Clause #4
Actions “for good” in a daily life
Have you ever noticed, in a complicated situation we try to solve it at best, but our good intentions usually fall apart or even lead to worse results? You may be surprised: “How come?! I wanted only good!” But the life gives its own interpretation of our “actions for good”.
The life always shows us that the human’s mind and intentions do not rule in the universe, only in our heads.
Clause #5
Excerpt from the article by Ming Lou (3)
Many people want to save the world but, does the world want to be saved?
That depends on what is your definition for “the world”.
1. If you mean “the world” is the nature, then the answer is simple: it doesn’t.
Nature doesn’t have conscience and there is no want or don’t want for it. It has its natural laws that govern everything in it without exception — it is run in perfect natural order, except on the Earth where human over powered the nature, for the moment.
It is the natural law that if an intelligent life form that naturally developed into thinking information evolution level but still stick to the old natural process to run their already manmade social system will be natural selected out of existence. That is the natural solution by nature. You can say nature save itself by destroying us on the Earth and preventing destructive effects from spreading into larger systems.
2. If you mean “the world” is the human society that will be a little bit complicated. The whole human kind doesn’t have a united thinking and don’t have a united will. So whether you answer yes or no to this question, you will be wrong.
Please, do not change the world.
Change yourself first.
And when you are done, the whole universe will change for you
References:
- Plastic bags were created to save the planet, inventor’s son says, by Phoebe Weston, Oct 17, 2019, available online: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/plastic-bags-pollution-paper-cotton-tote-bags-environment-a9159731.html
- The article about a historical novel “The Egyptian” by Mika Waltari, online source: https://library.answerthepublic.net/en/A//The_Egyptian
- Ming Lou, thinker, available online: https://www.quora.com/Many-people-want-to-save-the-world-but-does-the-world-want-to-be-saved
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