My daughter Clare recently texted me… “Talking about the theologian Reinhold Niebur in class and I think your worldview is super super in line with his! If you wanna sound like a philosopher you could call yourself nieburian :)”.
Reading his wikipedia page I see that he was a marxist, an opponent of John Dewey, supportive of segregation, and he thought that christians should convert jews to christianity. I was not sure how my world view is in line with this. But if you read on, you see that Niebuhr’s views changed over time, which is itself admirable. There was quite a lot that resonated with me.
One of Niebuhr’s big themes was that the idea of original sin has been corrupted. From a 2005 article, Aurthur Schlesinger Jr. talks about his generation (born in 1920s) as interpreting original sin as being forgiven at baptism, making us innocent of sin and putting mankind on course for greatness. But Niebuhr did not go for that. We are not innocent, it is not part of our DNA to go on to “greatness”. From the wikipedia article:
His major contribution was his view of sin as a social event—as pride—with selfish self-centeredness as the root of evil. The sin of pride was apparent not just in criminals, but more dangerously in people who felt good about their deeds—rather like Henry Ford (whom he did not mention by name). The human tendency to corrupt the good was the great insight he saw manifested in governments, business, democracies, utopian societies, and churches. This position is laid out profoundly in one of his most influential books, Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932). He was a debunker of hypocrisy and pretense and made the avoidance of self-righteous illusions the center of his thoughts.[69]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr
The sin of pride seems just as evident today. Pride in our team, in our world view, in our uncompromising ideology that makes us feel superior. It leads us to believe that others are misguided if not inferior.
It leads us to believe in democracy when we are the majority and disdain democracy when we are the minority. Which makes this a dangerous moment in US history. My white, eurocentric family are becoming the minority and they don’t like it. Loss of power and privilege is unsettling.
But now, more than ever, Niebuhr’s word ring true:
Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.
Somehow we need to get away from the idea that our team is right and that it is not worth talking to the other team.