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Moral Man and Immoral Society: Study in Ethics and Politics by Reinhold Niebuhr, Langdon Gilkey
drbobcornwall's review against another edition
5.0
Published in 1932 "Moral Man and Immoral Society" continues to speak with wisdom and clarity to the issues humans face. While individuals may have a certain sense of morality, society exists on a very different plane. Hypocrisy and self-preservation stand at the heart of human society, and humans are often compromised by it.
While not everything in this book transcends time, it is amazingly prescient about the political troubles we face. One of the issues he handles head on is our desire to see ourselves as morally pure, and that our actions are morally pure. But sin taints us. The need we have is forgiveness and humility, for we all share a common dilemma. This is illustrated in Niebuhr's discussion of coercion near the end of the book. Coercion of some form will exist in society. Nonviolent coercion can be highly effective, but one must recognize that even nonviolent coercion can cause property damage and harm to others. Think of the effect of a boycott on workers who make a product. Consider an embargo -- the people of a nation facing a blockade may find themselves suffering and even dying as a result.
Whether one is a Niebuhrian or not this is a must read.
Niebuhr is a theologian and an ethicist. He deals with matters of faith in his works, though this is less overtly religious than other works. Nonetheless wisdom drawn from Christianity pervades the book.
Read it again in 2017 -- still a must read!
While not everything in this book transcends time, it is amazingly prescient about the political troubles we face. One of the issues he handles head on is our desire to see ourselves as morally pure, and that our actions are morally pure. But sin taints us. The need we have is forgiveness and humility, for we all share a common dilemma. This is illustrated in Niebuhr's discussion of coercion near the end of the book. Coercion of some form will exist in society. Nonviolent coercion can be highly effective, but one must recognize that even nonviolent coercion can cause property damage and harm to others. Think of the effect of a boycott on workers who make a product. Consider an embargo -- the people of a nation facing a blockade may find themselves suffering and even dying as a result.
Whether one is a Niebuhrian or not this is a must read.
Niebuhr is a theologian and an ethicist. He deals with matters of faith in his works, though this is less overtly religious than other works. Nonetheless wisdom drawn from Christianity pervades the book.
Read it again in 2017 -- still a must read!
leh97's review against another edition
1.0
A book built on assumptions with which I cannot begin to imagine identifying—and Niebuhr did not even begin to justify those assumptions. And I don’t understand how such a book could be called theology.
jpwright87's review against another edition
5.0
There is a lot in this book, and much of it is hardheaded, cool, and practical. While certain themes are repeated throughout, it seemed like every page had some new and provocative insight that challenged preconceived notions (he criticizes Gandhi at one point, and fairly, I might add). And though the book seems dated, I thought its age allowed the reader to judge the accuracy of some of Niebuhr's claims about, what was then, the future. Even then, this book has lost none of its relevance.
alex_ellermann's review against another edition
4.0
'Moral Man and Immoral Society' isn't the kind of book you read casually. It's the kind you chew on, discuss in a seminar (if you can), underline and highlight and write about. It's fascinating.
Author Reinhold Niebuhr's core idea is that the aims, means, and moralities 0f individuals and societies are different. That which may be laudable in the individual (selflessness, for example) may be irresponsible for an entire society. He works through the ramifications of this idea in chapters exploring individual, societal, and national morality; rational and religious resources of the individual for social living; the ethical attitudes of privileged and proletarian classes; justice through revolution and political force; the preservation of moral values in politics, and the conflict of individual and social morality.
Niebuhr writes in the academic vernacular of his day (First edition: 1932); reflects the biases typical of educated white northeastern intellectuals of Depression-era America; and is particularly concerned with understanding the ramifications of the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the rise of Fascism. Consequently, this volume isn't an easy go for the contemporary reader. However, 'Moral Man and Immoral Society' offers insights that bear directly on contemporary international relations, domestic American concerns ("No Justice, No Peace" basically paraphrases the author.), and universal personal questions of how thoughtful individuals such as you fit into the imperfect societies around them. President Obama identifies Niebuhr as his favorite philosopher for a reason: though the author wrote books very much of his time, his ideas have proven themselves timeless.
Recommended for: political philosophers, pol/mil professionals, hipsters who want to sound cool when discussing the issues of the day.
Author Reinhold Niebuhr's core idea is that the aims, means, and moralities 0f individuals and societies are different. That which may be laudable in the individual (selflessness, for example) may be irresponsible for an entire society. He works through the ramifications of this idea in chapters exploring individual, societal, and national morality; rational and religious resources of the individual for social living; the ethical attitudes of privileged and proletarian classes; justice through revolution and political force; the preservation of moral values in politics, and the conflict of individual and social morality.
Niebuhr writes in the academic vernacular of his day (First edition: 1932); reflects the biases typical of educated white northeastern intellectuals of Depression-era America; and is particularly concerned with understanding the ramifications of the Great War, the Russian Revolution, and the rise of Fascism. Consequently, this volume isn't an easy go for the contemporary reader. However, 'Moral Man and Immoral Society' offers insights that bear directly on contemporary international relations, domestic American concerns ("No Justice, No Peace" basically paraphrases the author.), and universal personal questions of how thoughtful individuals such as you fit into the imperfect societies around them. President Obama identifies Niebuhr as his favorite philosopher for a reason: though the author wrote books very much of his time, his ideas have proven themselves timeless.
Recommended for: political philosophers, pol/mil professionals, hipsters who want to sound cool when discussing the issues of the day.
forever_amber's review against another edition
4.0
Много интересна книга и първата, която чета на Райнхолд Нибур (но имам още). Разглежда етичните ориентировки на индивида (и липсата му на въображение), обществото, класите (привилегированите и пролетариата) и религията като морален референт (да речем). Съпоставя рационализма и идеализма и прави доста интересни ремарки. Например че етичното в религията води до опасна социална дезинтересираност и че всъщност нейният идеал изобщо не е свързан по същество със социалната справедливост. Или пък че на интелектуалците им е необходимо известно лицемерие, с помощта на което егоистичните ценности на привилегированата и управляваща класа да се универсализират. Също така отбелязва, че икономическата класа се конкурира с държавата за лоялността на своите членове (в Средновековието тази роля си е присвоила Църквата). Говори и за разделението на пролетариата на тотално декласирани и безимотни и на „еволюционен“ или „парламентарен социализъм“, от което произтичат някои разлики в поведението и възможностите на тази класа за осъществяване на социална справедливост. Но най-хубавото е, че в типично протестанстки дух ни казва, че просто трябва да се примирим със съществуването на дуализъм в морала и толкова.
Ето една статия от него в „Християство и култура“: http://www.hkultura.com/autors/detailed/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B4%20%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%80_580.html
И някои интересни и впечатляващи цитати:
One of the greatest tragedies of the human spirit is its inability to conform its collective life to its individual ideals.
Individual limitations have a cumulative effect in human societies.
In man the impulses of self-preservation are transmuted very easily into desires for aggrandizement.
The larger the group, less subject to internal moral restraints. The larger the group, the more difficult to achieve a common mind and purpose and the more inevitably will it be unified by a momentary impulses and immediate and unreflective purposes.
Paradox of patriotism - it transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism.
Each action revolves a certain competition between values, in which one vale must be subordinated to another.
There can never be perfect mutuality of interest between individuals who [perform different functions in society.
Individuals are never as immoral as the social situations in which they are involved and which they symbolize.
Ето една статия от него в „Християство и култура“: http://www.hkultura.com/autors/detailed/%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B9%D0%BD%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B4%20%D0%9D%D0%B8%D0%B1%D1%83%D1%80_580.html
И някои интересни и впечатляващи цитати:
One of the greatest tragedies of the human spirit is its inability to conform its collective life to its individual ideals.
Individual limitations have a cumulative effect in human societies.
In man the impulses of self-preservation are transmuted very easily into desires for aggrandizement.
The larger the group, less subject to internal moral restraints. The larger the group, the more difficult to achieve a common mind and purpose and the more inevitably will it be unified by a momentary impulses and immediate and unreflective purposes.
Paradox of patriotism - it transmutes individual unselfishness into national egoism.
Each action revolves a certain competition between values, in which one vale must be subordinated to another.
There can never be perfect mutuality of interest between individuals who [perform different functions in society.
Individuals are never as immoral as the social situations in which they are involved and which they symbolize.
meganzc's review
5.0
Dense, remarkably prescient. It has helped me square a lot of my own internal ethical conflicts.
moreteamorecats's review
5.0
"THERE ARE IDIOTS. Look around." --Larry Summers
Economics, in its standard formulation, assumes rational markets, built from a base of rational actors. Summers, though a sexist jerk, was absolutely right to question that assumption, at least for purposes of dealing with real markets. Which brings us to Niebuhr. Moral Man, his 1932 bombshell, assesses the place of ethics, reason, religion, and persuasion in human societies. Niebuhr is as forceful as Summers, somewhat less of a sexist jerk, and focused on a broader sense of rationality; but the basic method is the same. He looks around, describes a universe of moral idiots, and dares you to argue otherwise.
Reading Niebuhr's first chapter, on the defining place of common interest in structuring social power, I was nagged by a persistent sense of familiarity. The source, in fact, wasn't hard to tell: I was hearing a voice much like [a:Saul Alinsky|59314|Saul D. Alinsky|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1221544138p2/59314.jpg]'s. The parallel is instructive. Alinsky was Niebuhr's younger contemporary. Both drew from a common stream of early-20th-c. American radicalism. Both cut their organizing teeth in the industrial Midwest (Niebuhr in Detroit in the '20s, Alinsky in Chicago in the '30s). Both spent their careers building movements around churches, student groups, unions, and government. Alinsky's progressive cred has held up much better than Niebuhr's, for good reason: Niebuhr never liked liberals much, in part because he thought they weren't serious about power.
Nevertheless, the book is essentially a critique of liberalism from within. Niebuhr's goal is the greatest level of social justice possible, understood especially as the raising up of the disenfranchised and downtrodden. The prevailing liberal dream in his time was that society would better itself as people became more educated, more open to one another's views, more spiritually aware. More reasonable. More sane. The pursuit of personal purity would never conflict with the struggle for a just society. Niebuhr shares liberal social goals entirely, but argues convincingly that only power moves power. Only an equitable sharing of power, gained by the most effective means, can move society toward proximate justice. The point isn't new-- Niebuhr sees it in, among other places, the Hebrew Bible-- but he makes it with pith and eloquence.
The book's major weakness is embedded in its title. This is a Man's book-- the perspective of an elite, White American. Niebuhr is so focused on correcting the sins of his primary audience-- White liberal self-regard and self-righteousness-- that he forgets the future neocons are listening too. He wants to attack the pacifist's sense of purity, so he downplays who's likeliest to suffer in war and revolution. It's not that he ignores the dispossessed: His first positive takeaway on Gandhi is suggesting that such tactics are obviously suitable to attacking segregation, which is something near prophetic. But this is still, all the way through, an intelligentsia's discussion of tactics. He could predict proletarian revolution, but I'm not aware he ever stood on a picket line.
Five stars, here, largely for the book's importance. As much as any, it founded the field of Christian social ethics, which sits somewhere between systematic theology, political theory, and old-fashioned muckraking. The theologians have never been comfortable with Niebuhr, for the same reasons politicians and activists (and some liberation theologians) have called him their favorite theologian. The post-liberal theologians of the Yale school and beyond aren't just reacting against Niebuhr, but in ethics especially, his priorities have structured their response more than most of them would care to admit. This book is where those priorities, of power and effectiveness and ethical realism, are most clearly stated. I have some profound disagreements with Niebuhr, but I can't ignore this book.
Economics, in its standard formulation, assumes rational markets, built from a base of rational actors. Summers, though a sexist jerk, was absolutely right to question that assumption, at least for purposes of dealing with real markets. Which brings us to Niebuhr. Moral Man, his 1932 bombshell, assesses the place of ethics, reason, religion, and persuasion in human societies. Niebuhr is as forceful as Summers, somewhat less of a sexist jerk, and focused on a broader sense of rationality; but the basic method is the same. He looks around, describes a universe of moral idiots, and dares you to argue otherwise.
Reading Niebuhr's first chapter, on the defining place of common interest in structuring social power, I was nagged by a persistent sense of familiarity. The source, in fact, wasn't hard to tell: I was hearing a voice much like [a:Saul Alinsky|59314|Saul D. Alinsky|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1221544138p2/59314.jpg]'s. The parallel is instructive. Alinsky was Niebuhr's younger contemporary. Both drew from a common stream of early-20th-c. American radicalism. Both cut their organizing teeth in the industrial Midwest (Niebuhr in Detroit in the '20s, Alinsky in Chicago in the '30s). Both spent their careers building movements around churches, student groups, unions, and government. Alinsky's progressive cred has held up much better than Niebuhr's, for good reason: Niebuhr never liked liberals much, in part because he thought they weren't serious about power.
Nevertheless, the book is essentially a critique of liberalism from within. Niebuhr's goal is the greatest level of social justice possible, understood especially as the raising up of the disenfranchised and downtrodden. The prevailing liberal dream in his time was that society would better itself as people became more educated, more open to one another's views, more spiritually aware. More reasonable. More sane. The pursuit of personal purity would never conflict with the struggle for a just society. Niebuhr shares liberal social goals entirely, but argues convincingly that only power moves power. Only an equitable sharing of power, gained by the most effective means, can move society toward proximate justice. The point isn't new-- Niebuhr sees it in, among other places, the Hebrew Bible-- but he makes it with pith and eloquence.
The book's major weakness is embedded in its title. This is a Man's book-- the perspective of an elite, White American. Niebuhr is so focused on correcting the sins of his primary audience-- White liberal self-regard and self-righteousness-- that he forgets the future neocons are listening too. He wants to attack the pacifist's sense of purity, so he downplays who's likeliest to suffer in war and revolution. It's not that he ignores the dispossessed: His first positive takeaway on Gandhi is suggesting that such tactics are obviously suitable to attacking segregation, which is something near prophetic. But this is still, all the way through, an intelligentsia's discussion of tactics. He could predict proletarian revolution, but I'm not aware he ever stood on a picket line.
Five stars, here, largely for the book's importance. As much as any, it founded the field of Christian social ethics, which sits somewhere between systematic theology, political theory, and old-fashioned muckraking. The theologians have never been comfortable with Niebuhr, for the same reasons politicians and activists (and some liberation theologians) have called him their favorite theologian. The post-liberal theologians of the Yale school and beyond aren't just reacting against Niebuhr, but in ethics especially, his priorities have structured their response more than most of them would care to admit. This book is where those priorities, of power and effectiveness and ethical realism, are most clearly stated. I have some profound disagreements with Niebuhr, but I can't ignore this book.
cgbeck's review
5.0
A near work of pure genius that is eerily relevant to the moment we find ourselves in almost 100 years later, and a rare reminder of what Christian thought is capable of.
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