What is a do-gooder and (why) is it a bad thing?

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Surely doing good is um.. a good thing. Prompted by the most recent post to this thread. Discuss with reference to 'bleeding hearts', if appropriate.

― N., Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It's that thing that people who want to hurt criminals say. It's all over the Irish Times website, I used to read their messageboard and it's all these hurley wielding people whom I imagine to be sweaty gaa coaches moaning about "pinko liberals", "bleeding heart liberals", and "do gooders".

― Ronan, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Are there right-wing 'do-gooders'?

― Andrew L, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I like the idea of 'do badders'.

― N., Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"hurley weilding" morally wrong or new olympic sport?

― jel --, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know. It might be the man on the bus this morning, who on seeing a girl try to get on the bus first, before the woman and toddler standing behind her, shouted at her 'let the child on first', then barged forward, shoved the poor girl out the way and got on before her, after the woman and child got on. he thought he was doing the right thing, showing the inconsiderate girl that she was rude and impolite,and 'doing good' by letting the child on first, but it certainly didn't seem that way. It seemed like he had no consideration himself and for the sake of manners he was prepared to make someone feel terrible, for what was a simple mistake and, hardly her fault that the bus stopped where it did, or that the woman with the child hadn't got to the front of the queue and probably didn't mind anyway, as she was second in the queue. He then talked loudly about the youth of today so that the girl could hear. Do gooders - people who seem to think they have a right to interfere, often doing more harm than good. That might be why it's bad.

― alix, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Surely he was just a mentalist?

― N., Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it is an interesting question, i have often wondered why it is thought of as bad to 'do good'. i think it is something to do with 'outsiders', maybe a do-gooder is perceived as someone who comes in knowing nothing about the situation/context and does what they think of as 'the right thing' regardless of what those 'on the ground' think. thats my reading anyway, although it still seems an odd insult...

― gareth, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I have no doubt that he was a mentalist, but a mentalist acting like a non mentalist, that was what offended me.

― alix, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mentalists: know your place.

― Emma, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It seemed like he had no consideration himself and for the sake of manners he was prepared to make someone feel terrible,

That's impossible, manners = not making people feel terrible (see Q.Crisp)

― jamesmichaelward, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I suppose 'do-gooders' are mocked by those who are feeling defensive of their own selfishness. However, there is a sub-species of 'do- gooder' who tries to 'do the right thing' seemingly blinkered to the efficacity and even the possible harm caused by their actions. Furthermore the worthy motive is sometimes compromised by the possibility that the 'good' deeds are largely in the service of such a person's sense of their own virtue. So, who is the better person: the one of dubious morality who achieves a benign outcome or the good- hearted one who unwittingly (or dim-wittedly) causes mayhem?

― Gordon, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

It tends to come up in situations involving criminals - serious or otherwise. The people using it assume that some situations or people are beyond help - that there is no 'good' to be done in these cases and people who try are useless at best and getting in the way at worst.

― Tom, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There is only so much mayhem a 'good-hearted' person can wreak. In practice, most 'damage' caused by the 'good-hearted' (which is not the same thing as having a good intention!! intentions are about ideology, logic, often rationalization...) is rather benign and usually inflicted on oneself. Taken to its logical conclusion, the above is an argument against having any sort of compassion or feeling.

― A. Boyle, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tom OTM: "do-gooder" = code for "how dare you try to aid or protect the rights of people we don't like" (with "protect the rights" going toward criminals, suspected criminals, and the sexually or philosophically deviant and "aid" going toward the poor or anyone else who needs help that people don't think it's their problem to provide).

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

which "above" is "the above"?

― mark s, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

...or the end justifies the means.

I think a random group of individuals could more likely agree on what constitutes a 'good heart' than what constitutes 'good intentions'. The former is about emotions while the latter is about values.

Applying the discussion to the notion of leniency in criminal matters, the good intentions here cannot be said to cause any mayhem, as the perpetrator alone is responsible for that. At which point it becomes a political discussion about the efficacy of the criminal justice system, rather than a philosophical discussion.

― A. Boyle, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The attendant caricature being "bleeding-heart liberals" who supposedly see child-molesters or illiterate starving people and "naively" go "awwww..."

― nabisco%%, Tuesday, 21 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

People who do stuff on others' behalf are incomprehensible. Like, don't you have enough problems of your own?

― dave q, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Dave Q people are always doing things on your behalf like praising you and trying to make you like the world for some reason. And what about when you give people advice and stuff WHAT THEN? Like you are right now HA HA!

I was thinking about this topic today after seeing 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington.' (That movie is the greatest!) I think that if you are stupid, ugly, weak, mentally ill or have any deficiencies whatsoever, it's only to be expected that you will seek to help others because otherwise your life will be an intolerable contradiction. People are made to feel very guilty in these times we live in for wanting to help others because it's not doing anything for the American economy. Forget that and pretend you live in the future when American's will be dwarves.

― maryann, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

'Do-gooders' is used perjoratively about the kind of Leftists whose prejudice against the Western capitalist mainstream runs so deep that they're unwilling to believe that anyone who is treated with hostility by, or lacks the advantages of, that mainstream, could be anything other than a victim of its 'privilege'. Hence their sympathy and excuse-making for everyone from sink-estate criminal scum to neo-nazi Arabs. The kind of people who deplored apartheid but who basically couldn't give a fuck about the Muslim-owned black slaves of Sudan, or any of the multitude of other hideous human rights abuses throughout Africa and the Arab world (unless of course they can be spuriously traced back to colonialism). When your sense of injustice is so skewed by prejudice and dogma then any attempt to 'do good' can only do harm - hence the present absurd situation in which today's Leftist 'liberal' expends all his effort promoting precisely those cultures and countries which are, by some distance, the most illiberal.

― neil, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Neil you reactionary counter-revolutionary swine!

― maryann, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And when I say 'swine' I mean 'pig' as in 'capitalist pig' because capitalists are 'greedy' like 'pigs'.

― maryann, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No but seriously Neil, what is your phone number?

― maryann, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

spuriously traced back to colonialism

(Because obviously post-colonial nations should have developed workable economically prosperous democracies in that huge stretch of like fifteen whole years since the tail end of colonial rule...)

― nabisco%%, Wednesday, 22 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Another angle on this that no-one's mentioned is that overly nice people are often (seen as?) incredibly boring. People who are tyring so hard to do the right thing, they lose their personaility. I can think of a few people I've met like this anyway. Everyone knows that nice is boring.

― Steve.n., Friday, 24 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

eight months pass...

I'm just reviving this thread in case anyone's interested in the new wave of 'x as pejorative' threads.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 10 February 2003 17:54 (twenty-three years ago)

two months pass...

I find the opposite to be true: overt attempts to be obnoxious, cruel, "shocking" etc. are more deeply boring than any nice but dull person could ever be. Thoughts?

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 28 April 2003 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, they're both boring, but one is actually terribly harmful. Therefore, avoid the harmful boring one more. The nice boring one may leave you sighing and griping but the alternative would get yer dander up more.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 28 April 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

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