I’m just a soul whose intentions are good
 Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood.
 “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” The Animals
    

One of the most complex moral positions I can think of is balancing good intentions with humility. Because our good intentions tend to elevate our self-importance. And because armed with good intentions, it’s too tempting to rationalize that the end really does justify any and all means. We have a penchant for knighting ourselves and climbing onto our moral high horses, intent on vanquishing the enemy and saving the land. For as Ralph Waldo Emerson argues, a good intention clothes itself with power.

As in any age, there is no shortage of good intentions today. Choose any political, social, economic, spiritual, or cultural ideology, and you will find individuals of good intent. At one time or another, these individuals have probably paid lip service to Samuel Johnson’s claim that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But clothed in moral power, they may not have the eyes to see that they’re traveling a a deceptively dangerous route.

Whether we canonize ourselves or villanize our enemies, both come too easily for many of us with good intentions. To keep our moral fervor burning, we frequently fuel the fire with a tried and true accelerant: a big, fat, decisive battle line. As long as we can keep the bad guys solidly on their side of the line, we can rally the troops, most of whom really want a well-defined common enemy. Threatened by ambiguity, we argue that we must be clear-headed and single-purposed if we’re to do the good we intend.

English Nobel Prize Winner Sir Ralph Norman Angell writes:

Let us face squarely the paradox that the world which goes to war is a world, usually genuinely desiring peace. War is the outcome, not mainly of evil intentions, but on the whole of good intentions which miscarry or are frustrated. It is made not usually by evil men knowing themselves to be wrong, but is the outcome of policies pursued by good men usually passionately convinced that they are right.

We go to war with so many enemies, real and abstract. And, as Angell writes, we do it paradoxically in the name of peace and righteousness. If our intentions are miscarried or frustrated, we want it to be known that we acted for good. I’ve been reading Dr. Kristian Niemietz’s book Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies. Dr. Niemietz is the Head of Political Economy at the Institute of Economic Affairs and formerly taught economics at King’s College London. Whether you advocate for or against socialism, it’s hard to argue with his claim that intellectuals have historically praised each of the world’s socialist experiments at their conception and throughout their infancy (the Soviet Union under Stalin, China under Mao Tse-Tung, Cuba under Castro, East Germany under the SED, to name a few). Later, after each failed–some more tragically than others–these same intellectuals claimed that this was because these socialist leaders had gotten it wrong. That is, they weren’t doing socialism right. Even though they may have begun with good intentions, ultimately they miscarried and botched the real ideology.

I wonder if generations to come will look back at our current political, economic, and social battles through the same lens: that we just weren’t doing it right. And this goes for advocates and activists on both sides of the political aisle, for those who hold very different views on how to make the world a better, safer, more sustainable place. Most speak and act with passion for the greater good, but in the end, many of their good intentions are still miscarried. By whom? Too often by themselves.

Hindsight is 20/20, and it’s certainly easier to look back on any battle with clearer heads. But consider those who have remarkably clear heads during the battle. When I think of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading civil rights’ advocates through the streets of Birmingham and other southern cities, I am amazed at his clear head in the midst of a terribly complex moral situation. How do you fuel the fire of your cause without these fires burning uncontrollably and damaging everything? That is, how do you keep your righteous passion from erupting into violence? While your eyes are fixed on the final prize, how do you also keep your eyes fixed on the means by which you win it?

King, a minister as well as civil rights’ activist, adopted the model of Christ’s civil disobedience. In doing so, he worked tirelessly to temper passion with humility. If police arrested you, King modeled that you were not to resist but go willingly to jail. If someone spit at you, cursed you, struck you, you were not to respond in kind. He instructed his followers to treat others, especially those who intended to hurt them, as they would like to be treated. To gauge King’s success using the model he’d adopted, I’d argue that King worked with good intentions for a good end, which was realized through good means.

Professor and novelist Shanti Sekaran writes of good intentions in her novel, Lucky Boy:

And good intentions? These scared him the most: people with good intentions tended not to question themselves. And people who didn’t question themselves, in the scientific world and beyond, were the ones to watch out for.

Our world moves fast. We can send our well-intended views digitally to a global audience in the blink of an eye. We can do this so quickly and so automatically that we often don’t question ourselves. To ask ourselves for restraint, for more time to consider, for greater understanding–particularly of our opponents–seems so counter cultural. Still, if we don’t ask these things of ourselves, what will keep us from clothing ourselves with unchecked power?

If I could write my own epitaph, I’d like it to be something like this: She was one who lived her good intentions with humility. Considering I’m not dead yet, I’m hoping to have some time to work on this.