to hell with good intentions

5/10/2018 To Hell With Good Intentions

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314 PART II: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING

ToHell withGood IntentionsIvan Illich

A n a dd re ss b y M on sig no r Iva n Illich to th e C on feren ce o n In te r-A meric an S tu den t P ro jects (C lA SP ) in C uern ao ac a, M exico , o nA pril 20; 1968. In his usual biting and som etim es sarcastics ty le , I ll ic h g oe s t o th e h ea rt o f t he d ee p d an ge rs o f p at er na li smin he re nt i n a ny v olu nt ar y s er vic e a ct iv ity , b ut e sp ec ia lly in anyi nt er na ti on al s er vi ce "m is si on ." P a rt s o f t he s pe ec h a re o ut da te da nd m ust b e view ed in th e h isto ric al co ntext o f 1968 w hen it w asd elivered , b ut th e en tire sp eech is re ta in ed fo r th e fu ll im pa ct o fhis point and at Ivan Illich's request. Reprinted with Ivanl ll ic h 's p e rm i ss ion .

IN THECONVERSAONS WHICHI HAVEHADTODAY,I wasimpressed by two things, and I want to state them before I launchinto my prepared talk.I was impressed by your insight that the motivation of U.S.

volunteers overseas springs mostly fromvery alienated feelings andconcepts. I was equally impressed, by what I interpret as a stepforward among would-be volunteers like you: openness to the ideathat the only thing you can legitimately volunteer for in LatinAmerica might be voluntary powerlessness, voluntary presence asreceivers, as such, as hopefully beloved or adopted ones withoutany way of returning the gift.I was equally impressed by the hypocrisy of most of you: by the

hypocrisy of the atmosphere prevailing here. I say this as a brotherspeaking to brothers and sisters. I say it against many resistanceswithin me; but it must be said. Your very insight, your veryopenness to evaluations of past programs make you hypocritesbecause you - or at least most of you - have decided to spend thisnext summer in Mexico, and therefore, you are unwilling to go farenough in your reappraisal of your program. You close your eyesbecause you want to go ahead and could not do so if you looked atsome facts.

) HELL WITH GOOD INTENTIONS 3.Itis quite possible that this hypocrisy is unconscious in most of

you. Intellectually, you are ready to see that the motivations whichcould legitimate volunteer action overseas in 1963 cannot be in-voked for the same action in 1968. "Mission-vacations" among poorMexicans were " th e t hi ng " to do for well-off U.S. students earlier inthis decade: sentimental concern for newly-discovered povertysouth of the border combined with total blindness to much worsepoverty at horne justified such benevolent excursions. Intellectualinsight into the difficulties of fruitful volunteer action had notsobered the spirit ofPeace Corps Papal-and -Self-Styled Volunteers.Today, the existence of organizations like yours is offensive to

Mexico. Iwanted tomake this statement in order to explain why Ifeel sick about it all and in order to make you aware that goodintentions have not much to do with what we are discussing here.Tohell with good intentions. This is a theological statement. Youwill not help anybody by your good intentions. There is an Irishsaying that the road tohell ispaved with good intentions; this sumsup the same theological insight,The very frustration which participation in ClASP programsmight mean for you, could lead you to new awareness: the aware-

ness that even North Americans can receive the gift of hospitalitywithout the slightest ability to pay for it; the awareness that forsomegifts one cannot even say "thank you."Now tomy prepared statement.Ladies and Gentlemen:For the past six years I have become known for my increasing

opposition to the presence of any and all North American "do-gooders" in Latin America. I am sure you know of my presentefforts to obtain the voluntary withdrawal of all North Americanvolunteer armies from Latin America - missionaries, Peace Corpsmembers and groups like yours, a "division" organized for thebenevolent invasion of Mexico. You were aware of these thingswhen you invited me - of all people - to be the main speaker atyour annual convention. This is amazing! I can only conclude thatyour invitation means one ofat least three things:Someamong you might have reached the conclusion that ClASP

should either dissolve altogether, or take the promotion of volun-tary aid to the Mexican poor out ofits institutional purpose. There-foreyou might have invited me here to help others reach this samedecision.You might also have invited mebecause you want to learn how

todeal with people who think the way I do - how to dispute them


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31 6 PART I I: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNING

successfully. It has now become quite common to invite BlackPower spokesmen to address Lions Clubs. A "dove" must alwaysbe included in a public dispute organized to increase Ll.S.belliger-ence.And finally, you might have invited me here hoping that youwould be able to agree with most of what I say, and then go ahead ingood faith and work this summer in Mexican villages. This lastpossibility is only open to those who do not listen, or who cannotunderstand me.I did not come here to argue. I am here to tell you, if possible toconvince you, and hopefully, to stop you, from pretentiously impos-ing yourselves on Mexicans.I do have deep faith in the enormous good will of the U.S.volunteer. However, his good faith can usually be explained onlyby an abysmal lack of intuitive delicacy. By definition, you cannothelp being ultimately vacationing salesmen for the middle-class"American Way of Life," since that is really the only life you know.A group like this could not have developed unless a mood in theUnited States had supported it - the belief that any true Americanmust share God's blessings with his poorer fellow men. The ideathat every American has something to give, and at all times may, canand should give it, explains why it occurred to students that theycould help Mexican peasants "develop" by spending a few monthsin their villages.Of course, this surprising conviction was supported by mem-bers of a missionary order, who would have no reason to existunless they had the same conviction - except a much stronger one.It is now high time to cure yourselves of this. You, like the valuesyou carry, are the products of an American society of achievers andconsumers, with its two-party system, its universal schooling, andits family-car affl uence. You are ultimately - consciously or uncon-sciously - "salesmen" for a delusive ballet in the ideals of democ-racy, equal opportunity and free enterprise arnong people whoha yen' t the possibili ty of profiting from these.Next to money and guns, the third largest North Americanexport is the U.S. idealist, who turns up in every theater of the' - IV0 rld: the teacher, the volunteer, the missionary, the communityorganizer, the economic developer, and the vacationing do-good-ers. Ideally, these people define their role as service. Actually, theyfrequently wind up alleviating the damage done by money andweapons, or "seducing" the "underdeveloped" to the benefits of theworld of affluence and achievement. Perhaps this is the moment toinstead bring home to the people of the Ll.S. the knowledge that theway of 11k ""'ey have chosen simply isnot alive enough tobe shared.

National Societv for Internships and Experiential Education

TO HELL ~'VJTH GOOD INTENTIONS 317By now it should be evident to all America that the U.S. isengaged in a tremendous struggle to survive. The U.s. cannotsurvive if the rest of the world is not convinced that here we haveHeaven-an-Earth. The survival of the U.S. depends on the accep-tance by all so-called "free" men that the U.s. middle class has"made it." The U.S. way of life has become a religion which must beaccepted by all those who do not want to die by the sword - ornapalm. All over the globe the Ll.S, is fighting to protect anddevelop at least a minority who consume what the U.s. majority canafford. Such is the purpose of the Alliance for Progress of themiddle-classes which the U.S. signed with Latin America someyears ago. But increasingly this commercial alliance must be pro-tected by weapons which allow the minority who can "make it" toprotect their acquisitions and achievements.But weapons are not enough to permit minority rule. Themarginal masses become rambunctious unless they are given a"Creed," or belief which explains the status quo. This task is givento the U.S. volunteer - whether he be a member of ClASP or a

worker in the so-called "Pacification Programs" in Viet Nam.The United States iscurrently engaged in a three-front struggleto affirm its ideals of acquisitive and achievement-oriented "De-mocracy." I say "three" fronts, because three great areas of theworld are challenging the validity or a political and social systemwhich makes the rich ever richer, and the poor increasingly mar-ginal to that system.In Asia, the U.S. is threatened by an established povver - China.The U.S. opposes China with three weapons: the tiny Asian eliteswho could not have it any better than in an alliance with the UnitedStates; a huge war machine to stop the Chinese from "taking over"as it is usually put in this country, and; forcible re-education of theso-called "Pacified" peoples. All three of these efforts seem to befailing.In Chicago, poverty funds, the police force and preachers seemtobe no more successful in their efforts to check the unwillingnessof the black community to wait for graceful integration into thesystem.- And finally, in Latin America the Alliance for Progress has beenquite successful in increasing the number of people v..ho could notbe better off - meaning the tiny, middle-class elites - and hascreated ideal conditions for military dictatorships. The dictatorswere formerly at the service of the plantation owners, but now theyprotect the new industrial complexes. And finally, you come tohelpthe underdog accept his destiny within this process!


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318 PART II: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNINGAll you will do in a Mexican village is create disorder. At best,

you can try to convince Mexican girls that they should marry ayoung man who is self-made, rich, a consumer, and as disrespectfulof tradition as one of you. At worst, in your "community develop-ment" spirit you might create just enough problems to get someoneshot after your vacation ends and you rush back to your middle-class neighborhoods where your friends make jokes about "spies"and "wetbacks."You start on your task without any training. Even the Peace

Corps spends around $10,000 on each corpsmember to help himadapt to his new environment and to guard him against cultureshock. How odd that nobody ever thought about spending moneytoeducate poor Mexicans in order to prevent them from the cultureshock of meeting you?In fact, you cannot even meet the majority which you pretend to

serve in Latin America - even if you could speak their language,which most of you cannot. You can only dialogue with those likeyou - Latin American imitations of the North American middleclass. There is no way for you to really meet with the underprivi-leged, since there is no common ground whatsoever for you tomeeton.Letme explain this statement, and also let me explain why most

Latin Americans with whom you might be able to communicatewould disagree with me.Suppose you went toa U.S. ghetto this summer and tried tohelp

the poor there "help themselves." Very soon you would be eitherspit upon or laughed at. People offended by your pretentiousnesswould hit or spit. People who understand that your own badconsciences push you to this gesture would laugh condescendingly.Soon you would bemade aware of your irrelevance among the poor,ofyour status asmiddle-class college students on a summer assign-ment. You would be roundly rejected, no matter if your skin iswhite - as most of your faces here are - or brown or black, as a fewexceptions who got in here somehow.Your reports about your work in Mexico, which you so kindly

sent me, exude self-complacency. Your reports on past summersprove that you are not even capable of understanding that your do-gooding in aMexican village iseven less relevant than it would beina Ll.S, ghetto. Not only is there a gulf between what you have andwhat others have which is much greater than the one existingbetween you and the poor in your own country, but there is also agulf between what you feel and what the Mexican people feel that isincomparably greater. This gulf is sogreat that in aMexican village

l \;at lOnaL Soclery J07"uuernsnips ana Expeneniiac r.auctuiori

TOHELL WITH GOOD INTENTIONSyou, asWhite Americans (or cultural white Americans) can imagineyourselves exactly the way a white preacher saw himself w~en ~eoffered his life preaching to the black slaves on a plantation 111Alabama. The fact that you live in huts and eat tortillas for a fewweeks renders your well-irrtentiorted group only a bit more pictur-escue. The only people with whom you can hope tocommunicate withare some members of the middle class. And here please rememberthat Isaid "some" - by which Imean a tiny elite in Latin America.You.come from a country which industrialized early and whichsucceeded in incorporating the great majority of its citizens into themiddle classes. It is no social distinction in the U.S. to have gradu-ated from the second year of college. Indeed, most Americans n01""do. Anybody in this country who did not finish high school isconsidered underprivileged.In Latin America the situation is quite different: 75% of all

people drop out of school before they reach the sixth gr~de. ~hus,people who have finished high school are members of a tmy rrunor-ity. Then, a minority of that minority goes on for university train-ing. It is only among these people that you will find your educa-tional equals.At the same time, a middle class in the United States is themajority. InMexico, it is a tiny elite. Seven years ago your countrybegan and financed a so-called /IAlliance for Progress." This was an/IAlliance" for the "Progress" of the middle class elites. Now, it isamong the members of this middle class that you will find a fewpeople who are willing to spend their time with you. And they areoverwhelmingly those "nice kids" who would also like to soothetheir troubled consciences by "doing something nice for the promo-tion of the poor Indians." Of course, when you and your mid die-class Mexican counterparts meet, you will be told that you are doingsomething valuable, that you are "sacrificing" to help others.And it will be the foreign priest v ' 1 1 1 0 will especially confirm.

your self-image for you. After all, his livelihood and sense ofpurpose depends on his firm belief ina year-round mission which isof the same type as your summer vacation-mission.There exists the argument that some returned volunteers have

zained insight into the damage they have done toothers - and thusbecome more mature people. Yet it is less frequently stated thatmost of them are ridiculously proud of their "summer sacrifices."Perhaps there is also something to the argument that young menshould be promiscuous for awhile in order to find out that sexuallove is most beautiful in a monogamous relationship. Or that the


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320 P AR T II: C RO SS-C UL TU RA L L EA RN IN Gbest way to leave LSDa lone is to try it for awhile - or even that thebest way of understanding that your help in the ghetto is neitherneeded nor wanted is to try, and fail, I do not agree with thisargument. The damage which volunteers do willy-nilly is too higha price for the belated insight that they shouldn' t have been volun-teers in the first place.

Ifyou have any sense of responsibility at all, stay with your riotshere at home. Work for the coming elections: You will know whatyou are doing, why you are doing it, and how to communicate withthose to whom you speak. And you will know when you fail . Ifyouinsist on working with the poor, if this isyour vocation, then at leastwork among the poor who can tell you to go to hell. It is incrediblyunfair for you to impose yourselves on a village where you are solinguistically deaf and dumb that you don't even understand whatyou are doing, or what people think of you. And it is profoundlydamaging to yourselves when you define something that you wantto do as "good," a "sacrifice" and "help."Iam here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce exercisingthe power which being an American gives you. Iam here to entreatyou to freely, consciously and humbly give up the legal right youhave to impose your benevolence on Mexico. I am here to challengeyou to recognize your inability, your powerlessness and your inca-pacity to do the "good" which you intended to do.

r am here to entreat you to use your money, your status andyour education to travel in Latin America. Come to l OOK , come toclimb our mountains, to enjoy our flowers. Come to study. But donot come to help.

I va n I ll ic h is the author of Deschooling Society a nd o th er p ro vo ca ti vebook s. T hanks to N ick Royal, T im Sianitm, a nd S te ve Bilbo for helping tofin d th is sp ee ch .

National Sccietv fo r lnternships a n d E x , , :e l '. : "; : ;- r J -i a / Education

CHALLENGE TO TH E NO TIO N O F SE RVICE 321

Nadinne Cruz

A n experienced practitioner speak s frank ly about the inherentcontradictions and dilemmas in service-learning and in them iss io n o f o ne o rg an iz atio n th at a do oc aie s it. E ven though thisnosiiion s ta tem en t b eg in s with a f ocus on one organization, theid ea s p re se nte d h ere a re v alu ab le fo r a ny p ro gr am or organiza-tion intereste d in com bining service and learning. T he authoravvropriateI1J struesles with the premises of this resource bookJ J '" 00 .in a way that the editor and many of the authors struggie withth e d ile mm as in th is d yn am ic , d elic ate , and inherenilu problem-atic com bination of conc epts - service and learning. Reprintedwith permission from Experiential Education, NationalS oc ie ty fo r Internships and E xperiential E ducation (N SIE E)/Vol. 14, No .5 " No vembe r-Decemb er 1989, pp . 15,23.

"AS A COMMUNITY OF INDIVIDUALS, institutions, and organi-zations, NSIEE is committed to fostering the effective use of experi-ence as an integral part of education, in order to empov..-er learnersand promote the common good."

The magnet that draws me towards association with NSIEE arethe individual members, many of wnorn .l have come to treasure ascolleagues and friends. VVhat keeps me in NSIEE compa'ly despitecompeting priorities is its mission. It is, for me, a compelling onethat engages me 'with our thinking and "doing" as NSIEE'ers. So Jwill probe a bit and assume that, among friends, we can disagree inthe spirit of taking seriously the responsibility for continuing torefine our sense of NSIEE's mission.NSIEE seems to be experiencing "good limes." ':f\le applauddevelopnlent of principles for good practice in service leami~g,which appears to fi t beautifully with om mission. We celebrate i.l\ecurrent national interest in youth service and the now standardacceptance of internships. We delight In the connections pecple


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32 2 PART II: CROSS-CULTURAL LEARNINGare making between service learning and cross-cultural/ interna-tional study. We exult with those who mine opportunities forenjoining all these with civic responsibil ity and educational reform.I am pleased with the apparent nationwide popularity of ideasthat we in NSIEE have been talking about for years. On the otherhand, the current flurry of interest in youth service brings to focusfor me the unease I feel about assumptions we seem to make inNSIEE's mission statement and which are similarly reflected indiscussions about service. The articulation of a broad normativeposition is a necessary beginning point, and we have done it. ButIfear our celebratory mood might muffle questions we need towrestle with in order 1:0 deepen understanding of our mission,including areas that people like myself might question. The appar-ent mainstreaming of some of our ideas notwithstanding, we atNSIEE still have lots of leadership work to do through criticalreflection on ou r thinking and practice.For example, Ion't think we have talked enough yet about theintractable issues in service learning or youth service (which Idon'tthink, by the way, are one and the same). Even carefully craftedguidelines for practice can do damage if they are not placed in thecontext of social reali ties, namely different and competing interestsas well as outright conflict, based on, for example, class, race,gender, and even nationality. We simply cannot gloss over, with-out cost to us, concrete conflict situations and experiences that makedifficult the application of concepts like "reciprocal learning." Iwould argue that the possibility of mutuality of interests and needsimplied in the concept of reciprocal learning could be more easilyrealizedif itwere no t tied to any notion of service.I want us to talk about why, in the context of conflicting interestsand the historical dominance of one racial or gender group overanother, it is possible that "service," in and of itself, can.have racistor sexist outcomes despite good intentions. For example, Iresistthe notion of service learning for U.s. students in the Philippines,my country of origin, beca use I think it perpetua res a "colonial men-tali ty" among Filipinos and a kind of "manifest destiny" among U.S.students. To my way of thinking, the results of the history of U.s.dominance in the Philippines is so overwhelming that it is almostimpossible fOT a U.S. student doing what is regarded on both sidesas "service" not to deliver a message of superiority.I challenge us to talk about the possibility that our social reali-ties as well as the his tory and practice of the notion of service makesit more problematic than its current popularity might suggest. Ithink that, in the context of a history ofdominance of one group over

l ' . ja:r.onal. ~Oclety [or tnterrtsnips an d Experientiat Education

CHALLENGE TO THE NOTION OF SERVICE 323

others, there is an incipient racism in the practice of service thatcannot be avoided even if the conceptualization of itincludes valuesand ideals we can respect and the virtues o r people who practice itare above question. That is different from saying that reciprocallearning is impossible, even when the partners-in-learning are notequal in power and resources. I am suggesting that reciprocallearning may be more possible if it is no t tied to a notion of service.Odd as it may sound, perhaps the common good might be betterserved in certain situations if we emphasized learning as the pri-marv zoal and "service," as we commonly think of it, as not in-J 0volved at all .This brings me back to the NSIEE mission statement, whichappears to make assumptions about the connections among: a) theeffective use of experience as an integral part of education, b)empowerment of learners, and c) promotion of the common good. Ithink it is possible to empower learners (through service learning)and no t promote the common good (by reinforcing a sense of inferi-ority among those "served" or a false sense of power among thosewho "serve"). It is possible to use experience as an integral part ofeducation and simply duplicate the realities we wish to change. Iam getting at the possibility that our mission assumes or implies thenature of connections among goals that may not in fact hold to-gether.Iwant us to discuss assumptions in our mission statement, notin the abstract, but apply them to program.s and ideas that appear toreflect a "mainstrearning" of NSIEE. Let us hold them up forscrutiny, which I think can be better done by hearing voices thatreflect the real diversity in this society and the social reali ties thatare the context for the commitments we make on behalf of learning.There is no short cut for hearing these voices directly and for airingcompeting perspectives openly. Ihope this is the outcome of ournational meeting in Santa Fe, which called for "Meeting the Chal-lenges of Diversity." May diversi ty bring out conflict where it ex-ists: may conflict deepen and develop. further our self-understand-'" .ing and mission as a community of people in a very special NSIEEorganization.

N adinne C ruz is E xecutive D irector of the H ig her E ducation C onsortiumfor U rban A ffairs (H E CU A) in St. P aul, M in nesota.

, ~ : : ' I: t.'


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COMBI 'I GSERVICE_A D LEAR I GA Resource Book forCommunity and Public Service

Volume I P...\I".5 CENTEH FOR /ubLlC .: ;, ;;t {l /JCE,55.8 SALVAT1EHRA \VPJ..J0J1!AYSTANfORD, ex '4305-8t"32C;

by Jane C. Kendall and Associates

A publication of theNational Society for Internshipsand Experiential Educationin partnership w ith theMary Reynolds Babcock Foundationand the Charles F. Kettering Foundationand in col la bo ra ti on w it h91 national and regional organizations

r-1nsieeLJ National Society for Internshipsand Experiential Education


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--~--------.-------------,

Principles of Good Practice inCombining Service and Learning

An effective and sustained program:1. Engages people in responsible and challenging actionsfor the common good.

2. Provides structured opportunities for people to reflectcritically on their service Experience.

3. Articulates clear service and learning goals for everyoneinvolved.

4. Allows for those with needs to define those needs.5 - Clarifies the responsibilities of each person and organiza-tion involved.6- Matches service providers and service needs through aprocess that recogn.izes changing circumstances.

7. Expects genuinel active, and sustained organizationalcommitment.

8. Includes training, supervision, monitoring, support, r.ec-ognition, and evaluation to meet service and learnmggoals-

9. Insures that the time commitment for service and learn-ing is flexible, appropriate, and in the best interest of allinvolved-

10. Is committed to program participation by and with di-verse populations.

See the follow ing pages for an explanation of each principle andexam ples of its use.

\ .

----_._----National Society [or lnternships arui Experient ia l Education

. Nadinne Cruz (1995) took this approacl 'itepfurther, reassessing the Wingspread principles from the I o _pec-Liveof diversity and then formulating a set of alternative or corol-lary principles:

A program committed to diversity _ ..1. Engages people to notice, reflect on, and participate in

dialogues about differences in defining, interpretingand expressing concepts of "responsibili ty," "action," and"common good."

2. Encourages a variety of ways to "do" and express "reflection,"including nondirective discussion, story-telling, varieties ofartistic expression in various media ... in addition to analyticmodes more commonly regarded as "legitimate" especiallyin the academy.

3. Respects and acknowledges different cultural practices thatshape how people define "goals," develop them, and feel acomfort level with precise definitions or lack thereof. Inaddition, a program committed to diversity provides timeand structure for participants to experience together aprocess of struggling across differences in coming toconsensus and/or principled disagreement in definingwhat is to be accomplished and what is to be learned.

4 _ Recognizes that some people may not view themselvesprimarily in terms of "need," and that the concept of "need"may be contested by U10se who view themselves as havingborne .the costs of historical legacies of colonialism, slavery,patriarchy, and other forms of subjugation or oppression.

5. Honors varying organizational cultures, some of which maydefine responsibilities more formally and explicitly accordingto a more rational-legal model, while others may be organizedin more fluid, informal ways.6_ Respects th e different cultural approaches that inform differ-ent participants about who is to be "matched," by whom, withwhom, and how.

'7 . Respects varying ways by which "commitment" is culturallydefined and expressed, and accounts for the possibility thatfailure to honor commitments may unequally and negativelyaffect different people involved in the program ..

8. Respects culturally different way s by which training, supervi-sion, monitoring, support;recognition, and evaluation aredefined and expressed.

9 _ Makes possible the effective participation of low-income work-ing people, Single parents, and others who experience con-stra ints defined by different economic and cultural reali ties .

10. Commits the necessary resources to encourage expression ofvoices of diverse participants who hold to r0rn~'Pt;T)Z ;T)'''':-;:''~-rations of the "Principles of Good Practice in Service-Learning"Clivi WTomnNinr- ;JSSlll11:)li'-ln,i'n~r ,,,,,;,,.,-1;.,, ,h< .."

to hell with good intentions

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