Good Intentions...Bad Intentions....does it even matter?

As I mentioned briefly in class the fact that the director of the movie purposefully left out some critical punctuation in the title of the movie leaves the focus of the movie up for questioning. For example: The Empire of "Good Intentions" would automatically imply sarcasm and say that the empire obviously had bad intentions. While as The Empire of Good Intentions? would imply that the goal of the movie is to bring into question and analyze whether or not there were good intentions. I think, however, from the structure of the movie the latter truly was what the director meant by the title. However, even if the movie determined that the motives of British Colonialism had been good intentions this does not mean that their actions are justified by any means, therefore, the argument that this movie was in defense of British action seems unlikely to me. Determining whether or not Britain had good intentions in colonization only determines whether or not they thought that they were doing what was right, which of course will be true as a whole. I think it would be hard for a political campaign that had the moral grounds of a mob gangster would have trouble finding traction, and that in general anyone that is mentally stable, morally sound, and sensible will always, on the whole mean well by their actions. As is often seen in history, it is when people feel justified by their actions and thus have good intentions that we see some of the most troubling conflicts. This is because there is then a personal, sometimes even religious motive behind their actions. The Crusades are a perfect example of this. Even slaveholders in the United States had eventually developed a (warped) system of Christian justification for their actions. Of course, to most it would seem absurd to think that anyone would find mass killings or torture is in any way justified but in history we see this time and time again. Therefore, determining whether or not the British Empire had good intentions is in some ways a moot point. The important thing to look at is the result of their intentions good or bad, and the result of course was obviously very bad for the inhabitants of these colonies. However, I think in the end its impossible to say clearly that the entire movement had good or bad intentions because there were obviously an overwhelming majority of people that had greedy intentions and used the creed of good intentions, such as Kipling's "White Man's Burden" more or less as a personal justification for their actions. But there more than likely at least some people that had good intentions. The reason I think these intentions, whether good or bad ended up so poorly I think is obvious from the reaction they incurred: Intentions that fail to take into account the personal life, religious beliefs, cultural identity and freedoms of a group of people in my estimation may appear to be good from the perspective of those who have them, but are ultimately gravely harmful to everyone involved. On a lighter note, while I think it would have been good to include African colonization in this move I will have to admit the contrast presented by Irish and Indian tragedies gave the movie a good contrast and flow, because one was abroad and one was very close to home. I was especially surprised to realize that the degree of suffering in Ireland during this time was comparable to the suffering in India for which this period is famous. Another thing I found very interesting about this film was seeing the political workings of colonization in play. I think many of us growing up get the sense that maybe just the queen sent people off to loyally conquer the "savage lands" but in this film we see real political turmoil between those who obviously have bad intentions but guise it within the good, such as McCauley, and those who could easily see through this guise and fought vehemently against it, such as Gladstone in his 3.5 hour speech. Though my argument probably doesn't hold as much weight because I am of European descent (somewhere way down the line) I would have to politely disagree with Bernard that the movie was Eurocentric. While the title of the movie does bring into question the positive coloring of such a phrase (which as I said earlier is a moot point anyways) and honestly the weird ticks and behaviors of the narrator was driving me a little "batty" I would have to say the movie on the whole presented the actions of the British Empire during this time as having very bad results on the world as indicated by the constant theme of suffering, death, and revolution, which in no ways indicates Eurocentism but rather disdain for the result of European actions. I agree, though that there should have at least been a mention of African Colonization, but I also agree that at some point a director has to decide where his area of focus is going to be. I think if he had chosen Ireland and Africa for example then there might have been those who complain that Indian colonization was left out and the same with Ireland. I think that the choice of Ireland and India has more to do with how nicely the two contrast each other, and has little to do with any sort of bias or aversion from Africa.