Podcast
On Being with Krista Tippett
This 1932 book applied Niebuhr's analysis of human nature to societies and nations; it posited that individuals may strive for morality, but collectively humans are prone to immorality and evil. His ideas were discussed extensively in the podcast.
Individuals, he said, may strive to be moral, but collectively human beings are compromised and prone to immorality, even evil.
— Episode: Paul Elie, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Rob...
Episode: Paul Elie, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Robin Lovin —...
This 1932 book applied Niebuhr's analysis of human nature to societies and nations; it posited that individuals may strive for morality, but collectively humans are prone to immorality and evil. His ideas were discussed extensively in the podcast.
Individuals, he said, may strive to be moral, but collectively human beings are compromised and prone to immorality, even evil.
The irony of American history as Niebuhr explained it is that our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined.
Our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined. It's a religious insight that's being applied in a political situation.
politics is the art of finding approximate solutions to basically insoluble problems working for a certain amount of justice, a certain amount of order, but it will never be utopian.
the New Testament does not envisage a simple triumph of good over evil in history. It sees human history involved in the contradictions of sin to the end.
Episode: Paul Elie, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and Robin Lovin —...
This 1932 book applied Niebuhr's analysis of human nature to societies and nations; it posited that individuals may strive to be moral, but collectively humans are prone to immorality.
man has always been his own most vexing problem
our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined
the irony of American history as Niebuhr explained it is that our virtues and our vices are inextricably joined
the very idealism that has animated so many good things in the history of this country also lead us to be arrogant, lead us to be insensitive to the cultures of other peoples, lead us to overestimate the ability to get things to go our way.
civilization depends upon the vigorous pursuit of the highest values by people who are intelligent enough to know that their values are qualified by their interests and corrupted by their prejudices