I know I’ve been quoting a lot of Niebuhr lately, but I just can’t get over how much meat is packed into the pages of “The Irony of American History.”
I just finished the book and sat in quiet awe reflecting the final two paragraphs. Niebuhr is speaking of the enemy of communism, but the enemy of radical Islam could just as easily be inserted.
There is, in short, even in a conflict with a foe with whom we have little in common the possibility and necessity of living in a dimension of meaning in which the urgencies of the struggle are subordinated to a sense of awe before the vastness of the historical drama in which we are jointly involved; to a sense of modesty about the virtue, wisdom and power available to us for the resolution of its perplexities; to a sense of contrition about the common human frailties and foibles which lie at the foundation of both the enemy’s demonry and our vanities; and to a sense of gratitude for the divine mercies which are promised to those who humble themselves.
Strangely enough, none of the insights derived from this faith are finally contradictory to our purpose and duty of preserving our civilization. They are, in fact, prerequisites for saving it. For if we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the 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 of the struggle; and the blindness would be induced not by some accident of nature or history but by hatred and vainglory.
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Thanks for passing this on. I’m about halfway through Halberstam’s The Coldest Winter, and I realized the chapters on China/USSR/communism are so easily substituted by Middle East/radical Islam, just as you point out through this excerpt. Like you emphasize, I think humility is at the root of possible solutions.
This is haunting, Cameron. Very indicative of what we are seeing today.