I agree that ``the ends justify the means″ type thinking has led to a lot of suffering. For this, I would like to switch from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, to the French Revolution, as an example (I know it better, and I think it fits better, for discussions of this attitude). So, someone wants to achieve something, that are today seen as a very reasonable goal, such as ``end serfdom and establish formal equality before the law″. So, basically: their goals are positive, and they achieve these goals. But perhaps they could have achieved those goals, with less side effects, if it was not for their ``the ends justify the means″ attitude. Serfdom did end, and this change was both lasting, and spreading. After things had calmed down, the new economic relations, led to dramatically better material conditions, for the former serfs (and, for example, dramatic increase in life expectancy, due a dramatic reduction in poverty related malnutrition). But, during the revolutionary wars (and especially the Napoleon wars that followed), millions died. It sounds intuitively likely, that there would have been less destruction, if attitudes along these lines were less common.
So, yes, even when an event has such a large, and lasting, positive impact, that it is still celebrated, centuries later (14th of July is still a very big thing in France), one might find that this attitude caused concrete harm (millions of dead people, must certainly qualify as ``concrete harm″. And the French Revolution must certainly be classified as a celebrated event in any sense of that word (including, but not limited to, the literal: ``fireworks and party″ sense)).
And you are entirely correct, that damage from this type of attitude, was missing from my analysis.
I agree that ``the ends justify the means″ type thinking has led to a lot of suffering. For this, I would like to switch from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, to the French Revolution, as an example (I know it better, and I think it fits better, for discussions of this attitude). So, someone wants to achieve something, that are today seen as a very reasonable goal, such as ``end serfdom and establish formal equality before the law″. So, basically: their goals are positive, and they achieve these goals. But perhaps they could have achieved those goals, with less side effects, if it was not for their ``the ends justify the means″ attitude. Serfdom did end, and this change was both lasting, and spreading. After things had calmed down, the new economic relations, led to dramatically better material conditions, for the former serfs (and, for example, dramatic increase in life expectancy, due a dramatic reduction in poverty related malnutrition). But, during the revolutionary wars (and especially the Napoleon wars that followed), millions died. It sounds intuitively likely, that there would have been less destruction, if attitudes along these lines were less common.
So, yes, even when an event has such a large, and lasting, positive impact, that it is still celebrated, centuries later (14th of July is still a very big thing in France), one might find that this attitude caused concrete harm (millions of dead people, must certainly qualify as ``concrete harm″. And the French Revolution must certainly be classified as a celebrated event in any sense of that word (including, but not limited to, the literal: ``fireworks and party″ sense)).
And you are entirely correct, that damage from this type of attitude, was missing from my analysis.