To Hell with Good Intentions - Ivan Illich
http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm
An address by Monsignor Ivan Illich to the Conference on InterAmerican Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on April 20, 1968.
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By now it should be evident to all America that the U.S. is engaged in a tremendous struggle to survive. The U.S. cannot survive if the rest of the world is not convinced that here we have Heaven-on-Earth. The survival of the U.S. depends on the accep- tance by all so-called “free” men that the U.S. middle class has “made it.”
The U.S. way of life has become a religion which must be accepted by all those who do not want to die by the sword - or napalm. All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford. Such is the purpose of the Alliance for Progress of the middle-classes which the U.S. signed with Latin America some years ago. But increasingly this commercial alliance must be pro- tected by weapons which allow the minority who can “make it” to protect their acquisitions and achievements.
But weapons are not enough to permit minority rule. The marginal masses become rambunctious unless they are given a “Creed,” or belief which explains the status quo. This task is given to the U.S. volunteer - whether he be a member of CLASP or a worker in the so-called “Pacification Programs” in Viet Nam.
Ils n’ont rien appris depuis sauf une mauvaise fois plus avancée. Les volontaires un peu naïfs de ’68 se sont mués en troupes d’intervention des révolutions de couleur et leurs patrons ont cédé leur place aux experts de marketing qui travaillent sans scrupules à la fois pour la #CIA et Procter & Gamble.
Heureusement ceci n’a pas la moindre importance. On ne se bricole pas des lois de l’histoire parce que ces forces majeures agissent aussi implacablement sur l’histoire humaine comme la gravitation le fait dans le domaine de la physique.
