Akira The Don, Alan Watts - How Do You Know lyrics

We white Anglo-Saxon Protestants
British, German, American, have been on
A rampage, for the past
Hundred or more years, to improve the world
To improve the world
We have given the benefit's
Of our culture,  our religion
Our technology to everybody
Except perhaps the Australian aborigines
And we have insisted that
They receive the benefit's
Of our culture, even our political styles
Our democracy
You better be Democratic, or we'll shoot you
And having conferred these blessings
All over the place
We wonder why everybody hates us
See, because sometimes, doing good to others
And even doing good to oneself
Is amazingly destructive
Because it's full of conceit



How do you know what's good for other people?
How do you know what's good for you?
If you say you want to improve
You ought to know what's good for you
But obviously, you don't, because if you did
You would be improved
How do you know what's good for other people?
How do you know what's good for you?
If you say you want to improve
You ought to know what's good for you
But obviously, you don't, because if you did
You would be improved

So we don't know
It's like the problem of geneticists
Which they face today i went to a meeting of
Geneticists not so long ago, where they
Gathered in a group of philosophers
And theologians and said, "Now
Look here we need help"
We now are on the verge of figuring out
How to breed any kind of human character
We would want to have
We can give you saints
Philosophers, scientists, great politicians
Anything you want just tell us
What kind of human beings ought we to breed?
So, I said, "How will those of us who
Are genetically unregenerate make
Up our minds what genetically
Generate people might be?"
Because I'm afraid, very much
That our selection of virtues may not work
It may be like, for example
This new kind of high-yield grain
Which is becoming ecologically destructive
When we interfere with the
Processes of nature
And breed efficient plants
And efficient animals
There's always some way in which we
Have to pay for it
And I can well see that eugenically-produced
Human beings might be dreadful
We could have a plague of virtuous people
You realize that? You realize that?
Any animal considered in it'self is virtuous
It does it's thing, but in crowds
They're awful like a crowd of ants or
Locusts on the rampage
They're all perfectly good animals
But it's just too much
I could imagine a perfectly pestiferous
Mass of a million saints

How do you know what's good for other people?
How do you know what's good for you?
If you say you want to improve
You ought to know what's good for you
But obviously, you don't, because if you did
You would be improved
How do you know what's good for other people?
How do you know what's good for you?
If you say you want to improve
You ought to know what's good for you
But obviously, you don't, because if you did
You would be improved

So I said to these people, "Look
The only thing you can do
Just be sure that a vast variety
Of human beings is maintained"
Don't, please
Breed us down to a few excellent types
Excellent for what? Excellent for what?
We never know how circumstances
Are going to change
And how our need for different
Kinds of people changes at one time
We may need very individualistic
And aggressive people at another time
We may need very
Cooperative team-working people
At another time
We may need people who are full of interest
In dexterous manipulation of
The external world at another time
We may need people who explore into
Their own psychology and are introspective
There is no knowing
But the more varieties and the
More skills we have, obviously, the better
So, you see, here again
The problem comes out in genetics
We do not really know how to interfere
With the way the world is