Ivan Illich: To Hell With Good Intentions, Page 314 [bottom of the 1^st page]

“You [volunteers] close your eyes because you want to go ahead and could not do so if you looked at some facts.”

The quote is taken from a speech delivered at a large gathering of dedicated volunteers who are about to embark on a good-will trip to Mexican villages. This quote functions as an accusation against the volunteers. Illich’s claim is that they have not stopped to consider or process the consequences of their actions. It points out the naivety of their belief that they are helping a lesser people to rise up and break the chains of poverty.

“A group like this could not have developed unless a mood in the United States has supported it – the belief that any true American must share God’s blessing with his poorer fellow men.”

from “To Hell With Good Intentions” by Ivan Illich

This quote is from the second page of Illich’s speech to the CIASP. He is laying the foundation for his argument that the CIASP, “salesmen for the middle-class “American Way of Life,” should stop operating in Mexico. Illich’s words suggests that American’s feel they have a debt to poorer people which they must pay off (or service).

“Ideally these people define their roles as service. Actually, they frequently wind up alleviating the damages done by money and weapons, or ‘”seducing” the “underdeveloped” to the benefits of the world of affluence and achievement.”

This quote appears on the third page of Ivan Illich’s “To Hell With Good Intentions” (P316). The quote is referring to the numerous do-gooders and idealists America exports to supposed third world countries. The use of the word “seducing” implies the sexual connotations of the fourth definition of the word service, as well as the balance of power within that definition. The definition, “also of a man, to have sexual intercourse with (a woman)”, places the seducer (which I feel could be either the man or the woman in the relationship- gender being particularly irrelevant in this context) in a position of power. In this case, the American idealist is placed in a position of power over the residents of “underdeveloped” nations, seducing them with the promises of her money, power and prosperity.

At worst, in your “community development” spirit you might create just enough problems to get someone shot after your vacation ends and you rush back to your middleclass neighborhoods where your friends make jokes about “spics” and “wetbacks.”

This quote is found in Illich on the third page of the document page 318 at the top. The way that it is functioning here is that it speaks to a group of people going down to do “community development” or service to the community to build or perform maintenance to the village or thing. This ties in with our definition of “to perform routine maintenance or repair, work on, particularly a motor vehicle or thing”

“Actually, they frequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money and weapons, or ‘seducing’ the ‘underdeveloped’ to the benefits of the world of affluence and achievement.” – Ivan Illich

This quote was introduced after stating that the export of the U.S idealist is the third largest export after money and guns. The paragraph has already identified the volunteer as an idealist who believes he is providing a service. This quote positions this supposed service as a means to compensate for damages, such as a payment of interest on a debt. The quote also highlights the debt a volunteer feels they must pay to the “underdeveloped”; the former believes that they possess and can give something that is worth having. Illich has already clarified that the quality that the American volunteers value in themselves and wish to share is merely a byproduct of their American “American society of achievers and consumers”, and infers that the volunteer is promoting this way of life, through volunteering, across the globe; the volunteer is pretentions for thinking that their ideals, manners, systems are needed by other societies – permeating a mentaling of manifest destiny among the volunteers.

5.) To supply a person with something:

“Next to money and guns, the third largest North American export is the U.S. idealist, who turns up in every theater of the world: the teacher, the volunteer, the missionary, the community organizer, the economic developer, and the vacationing ‘do-gooders.'”(page 316, beginning of 6th paragraph, Illich)  This quote is explaining Illich’s argument that he is against any and all North American “do-gooders” in Latin America.

“Or even that the best way of understsning that your help in teh ghetto is neither needed nor wanted is to try, and fail. I do not agree with this argument. The damage which volunteers do willy-nilly is too high a price for the belated insight that they shouldn’t have volunteered in the first place…I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce excercising the power which being an American gives you.”

Toward the end of Ivan Illich’s “To Hell With Good Intentions,” Illich makes an interesting arguement that enhances the of the meaning of to pay interest on, one of the many definitions of service. He makes a point to show that by not understanding the consequences of volunteering without understanding the context of the situation, we ultimately worsen the lives of those we are helping. We ultimately pay an interest for the damage we do- our price is realizing that our help was neither wanted nor good. Illich claims that the price we pay for gaining this “insight” is too high for his people and his country. The damage we do cannot even be compenstated by the little interest we pay, which is gaining this insight. Illich implies that the greatest interest we can pay on the debt of the damage we’ve already done is to “voluntarily renounce excercising the power which being an American gives [us].” By doing this, we can hopefully start undoing the damage caused by the “good intentions” of volunteers before us. 

The quote I chose is from Illich’s “To Hell With Good Intentions.” It appears on page 318 as Illich is talking about how middle-class volunteers can do little to help a Mexican village. Illich says, “At worst, in your “community development” spirit you might create just enough problems to get someone shot.” This reference to community development evokes ideas of building homes and digging wells, the kind of physical labor that our definition of service (to perform routine maintenance or repair) embodies…

“…for some gifts one cannot even say ‘thank you.'”

This quote comes from the beginning of Ivan Illich’s article. It comes immediately before his actual prepared statement, but at the end of his preface. He is referring to his frustration with CIASP programs in this quote. He does not want the North Americans coming down to Mexico thinking they are doing service when they are in reality sometimes harming their way of life. Illich wants people to be aware of his argument so that they will stop doing what they are doing. The definition of service given was: serve, also of a man to have sexual intercourse with (a woman). This quote shows that service is a gift which one cannot say or needs to say “thank you,” even if it is service of a man to have sexual intercourse.

To pay interest on (a debt).

“A group like this could not have developed unless a mood in the United States had supported it – the belief that any true American must share God’s blessings with his poorer fellow men. The idea that every American has something to give, and at all times may, can and should give it, explains why it occurred to students that they could help Mexican peasants ‘develop’ by spending a few months in their village” -Ivan Illich, To Hell with Good Intentions

This quote appears near the beginning of Ivan Illich’s To Hell with Good Intentions address to the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects in Cuernavaca, Mexico (1968). Illich uses this quote to initiate his oposal of international service work. Illich believes that because of the “American way of life,” Americans feel the need to do volunteer in poorer international countries. Almost as if providing service to these countries was their “manifest destiny”; because they are superior, they must help those below them…