Possibly, being good was not as easy as it seemed. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head IV: But What if the People are Stupid? BBCiplayer 2021
The whole idea of mass democracy began to be questioned and undermined from inside the political establishment itself. It began almost unnoticed, hidden behind the wave of enthusiasm after the fall of communism. But a political scientist called Peter Mair has argued that what happened in the 1990s was that the old idea of democracy started to disappear in the West. And it was replaced by something else which we haven’t fully comprehended yet or even seen because it is outside the old categories of politics. Western politicians, Meyer said, literally changed their roles: they gave up being representatives of the people and instead they became the agents of a new bureaucracy which was rising up and promising that it could manage the dangerous and unpredictable force of individualism better than the politicians could ... Individualism and its drive to self-actualisation can corrode and eat away at the collective power of mass democracy. Peter Mair said the same was now happening in the West. ibid.
You’ll never be able to feel good about yourself. The Sopranos s3e7: Second Opinion, new shrink to Carmela, HBO 2001
I’m a good guy, basically. The Sopranos s6e19: The Second Coming, Tony to shrink
Lesson#9: In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil. Robert S McNamara, The Fog of War 2003, director Errol Morris
Can one sin for the greater good? The Borgias s1e4: Lucrezia’s Wedding, della Rovere’s confession, Showtime 2011
What chance does Gotham have when good people do nothing? Batman Begins 2005 starring Christian Bale & Gus Lewis & Michael Caine & Liam Neeson & Katie Holmes & Cillian Murphy & Gary Oldman & Tom Wilkinson & Morgan Freeman et al, director Christopher Nolan Rachael to Batman