"People will justify whatever for a good cause"
About this Quote
Taymor’s line lands like a quiet warning from someone who’s spent a career translating big myths into big spectacles: the “good cause” is rarely just an aim, it’s a costume. In theater, you learn how easily noble language can launder ugly choices; on stage it’s lighting cues and swelling music, off stage it’s rhetoric and branding. The sentence is blunt, almost impatient, because it’s aimed less at villains than at the well-meaning people who prefer their motives flattering and their consequences someone else’s problem.
The intent is diagnostic. “People” is a sweeping subject, implicating the audience, the artist, the activist, the institution. “Whatever” is the tell: it erases boundaries. It suggests that once a cause is declared “good,” normal moral friction is treated as an inconvenience. The subtext isn’t that causes are fraudulent; it’s that moral certainty is a shortcut that invites cruelty, hypocrisy, and self-exemption. You can hear the director’s ear for narrative: “good cause” is the kind of phrase characters use right before they cross a line and call it necessary.
Contextually, Taymor’s work often wrestles with power, ritual, and the seductions of spectacle (from Titus to The Lion King to Frida). She knows how stories sanctify violence and how audiences collaborate in the sanctification because it feels purposeful. The line reads as a cultural critique of our era of mission statements and moral marketing: the easier it is to declare yourself righteous, the easier it becomes to rationalize the collateral damage.
The intent is diagnostic. “People” is a sweeping subject, implicating the audience, the artist, the activist, the institution. “Whatever” is the tell: it erases boundaries. It suggests that once a cause is declared “good,” normal moral friction is treated as an inconvenience. The subtext isn’t that causes are fraudulent; it’s that moral certainty is a shortcut that invites cruelty, hypocrisy, and self-exemption. You can hear the director’s ear for narrative: “good cause” is the kind of phrase characters use right before they cross a line and call it necessary.
Contextually, Taymor’s work often wrestles with power, ritual, and the seductions of spectacle (from Titus to The Lion King to Frida). She knows how stories sanctify violence and how audiences collaborate in the sanctification because it feels purposeful. The line reads as a cultural critique of our era of mission statements and moral marketing: the easier it is to declare yourself righteous, the easier it becomes to rationalize the collateral damage.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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