The Istoriaphile’s Corner

It’s a phrase they teach  that makes no sense on its face.  How can the road to Hell be paved with Good Intentions?  If someone starts a course of action with benevolent goal in mind, the results should be good as well.  Well, history and nature say otherwise.  Sometimes the failure comes from lack of imagination: rabbits were sent to Australia as pets and a possible food source about the same time Kudzu was introduced to the U. S. as an anti-erosion measure.  Both brought the disasters of an invasive species: Australia was forced into biological warfare to keep the rabbit population in check and Kudzu is known as “The Vine that Ate the South.”  Sometimes the well-intentioned element fails because of lesser parts of human nature.  Prohibition was called “The Noble Experiment” with the idea that making booze illegal would make people stop drinking.  Instead, people bought and drank unregulated, untaxed hootch and created a market for organized crime.  Sometimes everyone starts out with the best of intentions and still end up in tragedy. Some people may look to Romeo and Juliet as their choice for this mess but for me, it’s E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India….