The strife and warfare between the nations and religions of the world, as well as the animosities between and within the political parties and churches of this nation, have given me reason to read again Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society.

It was first published in 1932. I first read it nearly forty years ago. It impressed upon me then, theologically, that there is foolishness and even grave danger involved in the naive expectation that nations could and should obey the moral standards of individuals. In fact, Niebuhr said that was not even possible.

Consider this:

"The central thesis was, and is, that the Liberal Movement both religious and secular seemed to be unconscious of the basic difference between the morality of individuals and the morality of collectives, whether races, classes or nations" (p. ix).

"The thesis to be elaborated in these pages is that a sharp distinction must be drawn between the moral and social behavior of individuals and of social groups, nation, racial, and economic; and that this distinction justifies and necessitates political policies which a purely individualistic ethic must always find embarrassing" (p. xi).

"Individual men may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their own in determining problems of conduct, and are capable, on occasion, of preferring the advantages of others to their own. . . . In every human group there is less reason to guide and to check impulse, less capacity for self-transcendence, less ability to comprehend the needs of others and therefore more unrestrained egoism than the individuals, who compose the group, reveal in their personal relationships" (pp. xi-xii).

"Inasfar as this treatise has a polemic interest it is directed against the moralists, both religious and secular, who imagine that the egoism of individuals is being progressively checked by the development of rationality or the growth of a religiously inspired goodwill and that nothing but the continuance of this process is necessary to establish social harmony between all the human societies and collectives. Social analyses and prophecies made by moralists, sociologists and educators upon the basis of these assumptions lead to a very considerable moral and political confusion in our day. They completely disregard the political necessities in the struggle for justice in human society by failing to recognise those elements in man's collective behavior which belong to the order of nature and can never be brought completely under the dominion of reason or conscience. They do not recognise that when collective power, whether in the form of imperialism or class domination, exploits weakness, it can never be dislodged unless power is raised against it" (p. xii).

"What is lacking among all these moralists, whether religious or rational, is an understanding of the brutal character of the behavior of all human collectives, and the power of self-interest and collective egoism in all inter-group relations. Failure to recognise the stubborn resistance of group egoism to all moral and inclusive social objectives inevitably involves them in unrealistic and confuse political thought. They regard social conflict either as an impossible method of achieving morally approved ends or as a momentary expedient which a more perfect education or a purer religion will make unnecessary. They do not see that the limitations of the human imagination, the easy subservience of reason to prejudice and passion, and the consequent persistence of irrational egoism, particularly in group behavior, make social conflict an inevitability in human history, probably to its very end" (p. xx).

Reinhold Niebuhr. Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics. New Preface. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960. xxvii + 284 pp.

And this is just from the Preface and the Introduction. Shall we read more?

Niebuhr writes elsewhere that humans are created (finite), are created in the image of God (capable of being self-transcendent), and are fallen (self-interested). It occurs to me that nations are both finite and fallen, but are not capable of being self-transcendent. They are, quite simply, soulless.

So, certain things that are expected and required of individuals cannot be asked for from nations. And conversely, some things that are morally denied to individuals are required of nations.

It would be appropriate, prudent, and wise for us to distinguish between the two. And it could be fatally dangerous for us to ignore the difference.

For additional reading, see:

The Theological Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr