Niebuhr wrapped that traditional notion of sin in a new intellectual package and sold it successfull

[rodeodance]

Good read.



www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/27/4157/

The Theology of American Empire
Ira Chernus | September 27, 2007

Editor: John Feffer

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> American foreign policy is built on a deep foundation of Christian theology. Some of the people who make our foreign policy may understand that foundation. Most probably aren’t even aware of it. But foundations are hidden underground. You can stand above them, and even take a strong stand upon them, without knowing they are there. When it comes to foreign policy, we are all influenced by theological foundations that we rarely see.
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> For example, few Americans have read the work of Reinhold Niebuhr, the most influential American theologian of the 20th century. Many have never even heard the name. Yet Niebuhr’s thought affects us all. In the 1930s, he launched an attack on the liberal Christianity of the Social Gospel, a movement that powerfully influenced U.S. foreign policy in the first third of the 20th century. The liberals were starry-eyed fools, Niebuhr charged, because they trusted people to be reasonable enough to resolve international conflicts peacefully. They forgot the harsh reality of original sin.
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> Niebuhr wrapped that traditional notion of sin in a new intellectual package and sold it successfully, not only to theologians but to the foreign policy elite. Since the 1940s, foreign policy has largely been reduced to an endless round of debates about how to apply Niebuhr’s “realism.” Policymakers who still tried to follow the Social Gospel path have been marginalized and stigmatized with the harshest epithet a Niebuhrian can hurl: “unrealistic.”

> It’s a Jungle Out There
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> Many policymakers, like much of the public at large, have come to find a strange comfort in the world as Niebuhr described it. They see a jungle where evildoers, who are all around, must be hunted down and destroyed. Though frightening, this world can easily become the stage for simplistic dramas of good against evil. And the moral certainty of being on the side of good -- the side of God -- can provide a sense of security that more than makes up for the constant terror. That was not what Niebuhr had in mind. But as he found out so painfully, once you let ideas loose in the world, you can’t control what others do with them.......

[david_vincent]

1. Interesting insight

For those who are interested, the subject of Niebuhr's flagrant hypocrisy in his personal life may be worthwhile researching...

[Mountainman]

2. It seems to me that this proves we are in a state of de-evolution.

Once a long time ago before the fundies came to power I thought we would move forward in a progressive way.

[Igel]

3. He doesn't complain that US foreign policy is built on

theology; the problem seems to be the choice of theology.

Which is interesting, because it's just as possible to achieve the same choice of ends (a foreign policy that stresses self-abnegation/mutual dependence and cooperation vs. hardball realism based on valuing self-interest above others) both based on non-Xian-tainted theologies as well as without regard to theology per say.

[struggle4progress]

4. This is naive analysis: foreign policies are often largely produced by material interests;

and the ideological "explanations" provided for such policies are often merely mystifications that obscure material motives and salve consciences.

Attempts to understand and to change foreign policy behavior by philosophical analysis of the ideological explanations alleged for the policies are doomed to failure, because such attempts are usually based on an incorrect assumption about the real underlying causes for the phenomena.

[bemildred]

5. Yes. First you want to do something, and then you rationalize it.

And for any particular action, there are many "reasons" to do it, it's somewhat a matter of taste. Nevertheless, "original sin" has an illustrious history in support of tyranny.