Perhaps the most interesting example of the distortions produced
by analytical despair and adversarial nihilism lies in the notion of
unintended consequences. It is reflexly assumed that where a gap
between official goals and actual consequences is to be found, this
must be for the worst. The reform vision might have contained
genuinely good (if muddled) elements but (for whatever reason)
these good elements fade away and only the bad are left (threats
to civil liberties, extension of state power, disguised coercion or
whatever).