Richard Niebuhr presents a theory of foreign relations based on the pretensions and misconceptions of man to control history. Man’s irony is, that not only can he create history, he is also created by history, leads to situations that thwart his futile attempt to shape history.
Irony, defined by Niebuhr, is the incongruous outcomes of virtuous actions in which contributed to incongruities unknowingly and are discovered only after reflection. That is, we seek virtue by acting virtuously but unknowingly achieve something quite different. Irony is distinguished from tragedy where the incongruous outcomes are the result of evil actions performed to achieve virtue. Irony is also distinguished from “pathos” or pathetic outcomes where the actions resulting from pathos are not connected to the planned actions humans and lack both intent and guilt. Thus, in irony, we see humans acting for a good reason, but these good deeds cause unintended results.
At the time this book was written, (1952,) America was confronting Communism. Niebuhr, an anticommunist, notes with some alacrity, that is was the dream of man to bring the whole of human history under control but that no idealist, communist or otherwise, has been able to move history towards either peace or justice. Idealist ideologies of utopia are Karl Mannheim’s “ideology of the poor.” Utopias are impossible to create and maintain. All governments start with a concept of utopia and ironically end up with something quite different as they confront the realities of history.
The grand irony is that America combats the evils generated from the same illusions that America once had. The American goals for the world were Messianic: at creation, they escaped from European’s feudal tyranny. Jefferson stated, “Under the pretense of governing, they have divided their nations into two classes, the wolves and the sheep. I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe and to the general prey of the rich upon the poor.” America had the hope that it could transform its world from a place of misery to one of happiness and contentment. The Declaration of Independence states that one of the inalienable rights was “the pursuit of happiness.” Jefferson’s picture of America was that of an agrarian society which guaranteed virtue by the hard work of owners producing the fruits of their land and insuring happiness and contentment in the enjoyment of those fruits. He believed that democracy was only safe in the agrarian economy.
Such a society regarded itself innocent because it believed self-interest to be inherently harmless. But it was blind to man’s lust for power and the injustices that flowed from the imbalances of power within its communities. America became what Jefferson most feared: a large industrial country with large metropolitans rife with the opportunities for corruption, an irony on its merit.
America carried its illusions of innocency into its foreign policy. It disavowed the need for power. However, it never was as innocent as it pretended to be particularly in the expansion Westward. Until World War I, Americans believed in a generic difference between Europe and itself. We entered into the war from considerations of national interests, interests that Americans would not acknowledge.
The communists have their own Messianic vision: Men are corrupted singularly by the ownership of property. Abolition of property ownership returns man to his original state of innocence. The proletariat initiates this return because it has no interests to defend. Revolution is necessary to accomplish this ideal. A communist society would be harmonious and unselfish thereby defining a world at peace. Capitalism is defined to hold the guilt of “imperialism” as its relentless need for property forces the need for war.
If one accepts the premises of communism, then the logic is intoxicating, so intoxicating that despite the cruelty of the actions of its leaders, they still profess belief in the logic! The irony is that the ideological taint to Marxist theory confines guilts to the economic interests of a particular class, blinding communists to the corruptions from its own human ambitions. Despite rejecting religion, it has become a religious apocalypse. It is a religion that teaches man is the master of his destiny and its “God” is “Dialectic History.” However, history does not and never has followed the logic of man.
Niebuhr states that there are two ways to deny our responsibilities to the world: 1) seeking to dominate other nations by power and 2) to withdraw from the world stage by a policy of isolationism. Before World War II, America was perhaps the most reluctant powerful to acknowledge its responsibilities to the world politic. However, World War II dispelled that notion and had the result that the United States emerged the most powerful nation on the earth. The United States possessed a weapon so powerful that we could not ignore it. It was critical to the survival of the United States, but if the United States were to use it, America would be covered with terrible guilt.
Some idealists believed that if we made strenuous rational and moral efforts toward a world government, we could escape the dilemma between guilt and innocence of war. Other idealists proclaimed that if we gave up atomic weapons, we would escape the dilemma. The realists (Niebuhr’s word, not mine,) believed that the evils already shown by communism justified the use of atomic weapons against them. Niebuhr claims, all of these positions demonstrated that there is no moral solution, but neither is there a solution which ignores moral factors.
As Niebuhr states, “Perhaps the real difficulty in both communist and liberal dreams of a rationally ordered historic process is that modern man lacks the humility to accept the fact that the whole drama of history is enacted in a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or measurement.” Man is limited. Man’s original sin is challenging the limits which God placed on him. Man’s limitations are critical to Niebuhr’s theology and thesis. Niebuhr was the author of the “Serenity Prayer:”
“O God and Heavenly Father,
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed;
courage to change that which can be changed, and
wisdom to know the one from the other,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.”
Niebuhr prescribes that the success of America in the world politic depends on its ability to establish a community of many nations. It requires that America appreciates the valid practices and institutions of those nations even though they are different from our own. We must disavow our previous pretensions of Messianism and recognize that virtue enters history in unpredictable ways. There is a temptation to withdraw from world politics as we did before World War II. We have an illusion that we can live our lives with too much regard for the harassed world. We transfer democracy to the world by our example.
Few nonindustrial nations have sufficiently high standards of honesty to make a democracy viable. Furthermore, the relationship of capitalism to these nations is not guiltless: when technology from the developed nations was applied to these nations, it was to exploit them rather than improve their systems of virtues and justice. It is not possible to transmute an agrarian society into a technical one without massive dislocations of culture and society. In many cases, the wealth and standards of life in highly industrial nations are so beyond the imagination of the peoples in agrarian societies that they do not understand the requirements for democracy. Democracy is not immediately relevant to the ancient culture of the East or the primitive cultures of Africa, as is generally supposed by the Messianic proponents in America. It took for centuries of development in Europe to achieve democracy. A conclusion is that America will face tyranny in the world for decades to come, but, fortunately, the nonindustrial world lacks the technical resources to offer a mortal challenge to the society of America.
The power of the United States can be misused. Much of the world fear this. For American power in service of American idealism, while not of malice or lust of power, could result in the ironic conversion of virtues into vices. There is no clear road to happiness for the world. Idealism blinds us to our vices. A second problem with idealism is that idealists are impatient in the development of virtues in others forcing our nation into rash decisions. Where elephants dance, pygmies cower. In our blind exuberance of power, we disregard the interests of the less powerful societies. One of the great fears of Europe is that America will engage in a war Europe wants to avoid. In its frustration of achieving ideals, America may consider a “preemptive war” to enforce its Messianic inclinations. This is singularly the one policy that America must avoid. There are no guarantees of democracy over tyranny or for a peaceful resolution of conflict once engaged. Often, America’s foreign policy has shown ignorance of this.
There are those who claim our foreign policy should be based solely on national interests. According Niebuhr, this egotism is wrongheaded. The cure for pretentious idealism is not egotism but the concern for both self and others, and preserving the respect for the opinions of others derived from an awareness of one’s knowledge and power.
Most importantly, we must, from time to time, step back and reflect on what virtues we were acting under and how they contributed to unintended outcomes. The knowledge of irony is often reserved for observers rather than the participants. Ironic interpretations are difficult but critical, not hostile, detachment is required. But, it is required for maturity in foreign relations.
Niebuhr ends with “For if we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would only be a secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards and of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.”
Despite its brevity, this book is not an easy book to read. It is necessary to read, review and think about the predicates to gain appreciation for the tight logic used by Niebuhr. Not everyone will like this book: it does not fall into the neat “Conservative” and “Liberal” boxes of American politics today. But its message is still as valid today as they were in 1952 when Niebuhr wrote this text.
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