do-goodism

This wasn’t social worker do-goodism, nor ideological advocacy, rather it was a practical approach based on overwhelming empirical evidence.

To the foreign policy titans of that era, notably Henry Kissinger, vital national interests, great power rivalry and so-called realism ruled the day — not justice, decency or do-goodism.

Yet while the movie can be read as a skewering of bourgeois do-goodism, Muntean doesn’t punish his characters and he doesn’t slap his viewers around for their complicity in the horror show we call the world.

Although lampooning such do-goodism would have been easy, “Crossroads” lets the chaff and the wheat grow together.

Ironically, their attempts inspired mostly opposition, including from some surprising sources like labor leaders, who have seen corporate do-goodism as a sneaky, manipulative way to get more out of workers or as a paternalistic imposition of a leader’s values on his employees, customers and the public.