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Reflections on the end of an era

door Reinhold Niebuhr

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This is the work Reinhold introduces with the acknowledgment that his brother Richard is in disagreement over "most" of the conclusions.

I. In speaking of the life and death of civilization, RN begins with the "strange irony" of history, that commercial industrial civilization was so optimistic: "Destined to premature decay, it dreamed of progress almost until the hour of its dissolution." In fact, the means of production and communication distort the actual realities of human life, and deceive our "wise men".[4] {Well, that is a problem right there; he discounts the wise women.}

RN takes the view that universalizing impulses self-destruct. [6] Reason adopts the strategy of universalizing, then subjecting competing forms to itself, and subjecting all forms to the universal. For example, all high religion subordinates life to the more absolute form, to God. This is his explanation for why asceticism, a strategic self-restraint to the point of self-annihilation, always grows in the curtiledge of true religion. [7-8] RN analyses the distinction between "spirit" and "nature", while citing and joining Jung in failing to define these "mythological conceptions in precise scientific terms". [9] Jung grants that natural instincts "are forces of propulsion in human life, whether we call them sexuality or the will-to-power", nodding to both Freud and Adler. She collisions with "spirit" remain mysteries, which cannot be explained by invoking other mysteries.

RN places the defects of modern civilization on the lap of the oligarchs. Unlike previous rulers, modern rulers lack an organic relation to the impulses of nature in man. [10] In other civilizations, the rulers accepted warfare as the rule of life, and gloried in its romance. The modern pretends to an abhorrence of blood, but his lust of power and the imperial impulse render him partially unconscious about brutalities, even those he directly causes. "He may tenderly send his family to escape the winter's cold on the sands of Palm Beach while his workers starve to death amid the social confusion of an economic depression." [11]

He critiques the capitalistic period of society, ushered in by liberalism, the economics of laissez-faire and the ethics of utilitarianism. [12] "According to the theory of Adam Smith, the self-interest of competing individuals would automatically make for social harmony." The dream of traders would become the basis of reciprocity and balance. Neither the traders nor the academics understood the power and persistence of irrational egoism in human behavior. {He practically names the GOP and Trump!} So while dreaming of peace, modern civilization tears itself apart. [14]

II. Prophecy of Doom. The senile social systems (informed by Laissez-faire economics and utilitarianism) are unable to mend their ways, and "we are obviously in the process of disintegration." [23] No Conference can stop the arms race. Economic ills cannot be eliminated "if wealth is not more equitably distributed." [23] The system provides for private ownership of the productive processes upon which the health of the whole civilization depends. The unequal distribution of social power automatically leads to inequality and injustice. "Modern technology has made social mutuality and international reciprocity an absolute imperative, a very law of survival; while our system of economic ownership makes both intra-national justice and international reciprocity impossible." [29]

"The wise men who see the logic of history so plainly always live under the illusion that the men of power [oligarchs] can finally be persuaded to see what they see. They suffer from this illusion because they do not realize how much the collective life of man moves by impulse rather than be reason." The will-to-survive will grow desperate and transmute into will-to-power which finally makds survival impossible because it arouses the "antagonism of all who suffer from its injustices". [34] The life-as-impluse defies the life-as-spirit. [35]

III. The wise men and the mighty men. There have always been men of wisdom and virtue who stood before the king to speak the truth. [39] Alexander was tutored by Aristotle, but we see little influence on Alexander's political or ethical ideals. Nero was taught by the greatest of stoic philosophers, Seneca, yet power excited his lusts, drugged his conscience, and guided his extravagant tyrannies. Henry VIII sought the counsel of humanist Thomas More, who was beguiled by the monarch's pretensions of piety and executed. Martin Luther very naively reports on the pious rectitude of Landrave of Hesse's asking for advice concerning intended wars. [41] Occasionally "the strong man yields to the good man of unyielding and disinterested courage", but usually "the man of power does not yield." Kaiser Wilhelm had a court preacher who preached Christian socialism, and was dismissed when it became a political party. Power may tolerate a balancing morality, but persecute political implementation. Frederick welcomed Voltaire to his court, and Katherine welcomed Diderot. But in neither case was there any
  keylawk | Sep 27, 2019 |
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