[Peace-discuss] Obama and Niebuhr?

[John W.]

Thanks for sharing, Mort.  I think this reflection sums up rather succinctly
the subtle but significant difference between Obama and Bush.  Obama has a
measure of humility, born of a much deeper understanding of the complexities
and contradictions of the human condition.  I just hope his humility will
grow as he assumes command of America's Ship of State - as I think Abraham
Lincoln's did - rather than become subsumed by the prerogatives of perceived
power.

I love Andrew Bacevich, by the way.  He's been on Bill Moyers several times,
and he never fails to have prescient things to say.

John Wason


On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 11:17 AM, Morton K. Brussel <brussel at illinois.edu>wrote:

An interesting reflection on Rheinhold Niebuhr, Obama,  and original sin.
> Clearly, something *has* changed as a result of the election. Maybe not
> enough, though.
> *Published on Thursday, November 6, 2008 by The Boston Globe*
> *Evangelical Foreign Policy Is Over*
>
> by Andrew J. Bacevich
>
> With Barack Obama's election to the presidency, the evangelical moment in
> US foreign policy has come to an end. The United States remains a nation of
> believers, with Christianity the tradition to which most Americans adhere.
> Yet the religious sensibility informing American statecraft will no longer
> find expression in an urge to launch crusades against evil-doers.
>
> Like our current president, Obama is a professed Christian. Yet whereas
> George W. Bush once identified Jesus Christ himself as his favorite
> philosopher, the president-elect is an admirer of Reinhold Niebuhr, the
> renowned Protestant theologian.
>
> Faced with difficult problems, conservative evangelicals ask WWJD: What
> would Jesus do? We are now entering an era in which the occupant of the Oval
> Office will consider a different question: What would Reinhold do?
>
> During the middle third of the last century, Niebuhr thought deeply about
> the complexities, moral and otherwise, of international politics. Although
> an eminently quotable writer, his insights do not easily reduce to a
> sound-bite or bumper sticker.
>
> At the root of Niebuhr's thinking lies an appreciation of original sin,
> which he views as indelible and omnipresent. In a fallen world, power is
> necessary, otherwise we lie open to the assaults of the predatory. Yet since
> we too number among the fallen, our own professions of innocence and
> altruism are necessarily suspect. Power, wrote Niebuhr, "cannot be wielded
> without guilt, since it is never transcendent over interest." Therefore, any
> nation wielding great power but lacking self-awareness - never an American
> strong suit - poses an imminent risk not only to others but to itself.
>
> Here lies the statesman's dilemma: You're damned if you do and damned if
> you don't. To refrain from resisting evil for fear of violating God's laws
> is irresponsible. Yet for the powerful to pretend to interpret God's will
> qualifies as presumptuous. To avert evil, action is imperative; so too is
> self-restraint. Even worthy causes pursued blindly yield morally problematic
> results.
>
> Niebuhr specialized in precise distinctions. He supported US intervention
> in World War II - and condemned the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that
> ended that war. After 1945, Niebuhr believed it just and necessary to
> contain the Soviet Union. Yet he forcefully opposed US intervention in
> Vietnam.
>
> The vast claims of Bush's second inaugural - with the president discerning
> history's "visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty" -
> would have appalled Niebuhr, precisely because Bush meant exactly what he
> said. In international politics, true believers are more dangerous than
> cynics.
>
> Grandiose undertakings produce monstrous byproducts. In the eyes of
> critics, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo show that all of Bush's freedom talk is
> simply a lie. Viewed from a Niebuhrean perspective, they become the
> predictable if illegitimate offspring of Bush's convictions. Better to
> forget utopia, leaving it to God to determine history's trajectory.
>
> On the stump, Obama did not sound much like a follower of Niebuhr.
> Campaigns reward not introspection, but simplistic reassurance: "Yes, we
> can!" Yet as the dust now settles, we might hope that the victor will sober
> up and rediscover his Niebuhrean inclinations. Sobriety in this case begins
> with abrogating what Niebuhr called "our dreams of managing history,"
> triggered by the end of the Cold War and reinforced by Sept. 11. "The course
> of history," he emphasized, "cannot be coerced."
>
> We've tried having a born-again president intent on eliminating evil. It
> didn't work. May our next president acknowledge the possibility that, as
> Niebuhr put it, "the evils against which we contend are frequently the
> fruits of illusions which are similar to our own." Facing our present
> predicament requires that we shed illusions about America that would have
> offended Jesus himself.
>
> Obama has written that he took from reading Niebuhr "the compelling idea
> that there's serious evil in the world" along with the conviction that
> evil's persistence should not be "an excuse for cynicism and inaction." Yet
> Niebuhr also taught him that "we should be humble and modest in our belief
> we can eliminate those things." As a point of departure for reformulating US
> foreign policy, we could do a lot worse.
>
> (c) Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
> Andrew J. Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at
> Boston University, is the author of "*The Limits of Power: The End of
> American Exceptionalism*<https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805088156?tag=commondreams-20&camp=0&creative=0&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=0805088156&adid=129A18YZCE5DM7F7QWNT&>."
>
>
> Article printed from *www.CommonDreams.org*
>
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