Does it matter if you do good stuff for all the wrong reasons?
This is hardly a new question. Nor is it unexamined. Thinkers have likely wasted millions of hours considering it. Lots of answers. Aristotle said that it is the “intention” that matters, not what you do but why you do it. And then there’s Kant, the opposite. He has convinced a lot of people that it is the action that matters, not the purpose.
I thought of that question as I watched Orange Julius traipse around the Arab World. It’s early yet, but it seems as if some of the things that he said and did over there were actually worthwhile.
He said that the days of the U.S. telling everybody how to live were over. What’s wrong with that? It came from his orange lips, yes, but doesn’t it make sense? For over a century we’ve been going to war over why people govern themselves differently than we do. What did that do for us? Yes, beating Hitler was necessary, but that is the exception that proves the rule. For the most part what it did for us was create enemies who resent/hate us for trying to remake their world in our image. So, I think the Orange creature may have had a point on that one.
He also went out there and sat down with our supposed, “enemies.” He even met with the Syrian guy who we always were told is a terrorist – the worst thing that our government can call anyone. Yes, it is likely that he said something stupid while he sat there, but he sat there. What’s wrong with that? How do we deal with enemies if we don’t communicate. Isn’t that what every marriage counselor tells us?
Finally, he says he got commitments from the United Arab Republic for an investment of two trillion dollars in the United States. Now, you must know that I don’t believe that. But it is entirely possible that some of that cash will get over here. So even if a fraction of two trillion dollars gets injected into our economy, that ain’t half bad.
So, let’s assume that at least some of the stuff he did over there was worthwhile. But why did he do it?
Our President does nothing for anybody else. And while maybe he was making the whole world a better place, he was definitely making his part of it a better place: an Emirate-backed firm happened to buy two billion dollars of his family digital coin; the family company is now building an 80-story Trump Tower in Dubai and a golf course in Qatar. And need I mention that 400 million-dollar plane?
It is only tangentially that our President does anything that turns out good for us. Only if it benefits him does he do it and if it benefits us at the same time, that is purely by coincidence.
So, what would Aristotle and Kant think? I can’t help but believe that both of them, despite their fundamental differences, would still conclude the obvious – that no matter what he does, Orange Julius is still a gaping asshole.
We were right 