As described in diaries here--NLinStPaul, and here--FrankCornish; this is the DailyKos Reinhold Niebuhr Book Club. For our first selection we are reading Moral Man and Immoral Society. We will be covering one chapter per week, and your three hosts are dirkster42, FrankCornish and NLinStPaul. The club will meet Thursday nights between 7:30 and 8:00 pm East Coast Time. So be on the lookout for those Thursday Night Posts.
Niebuhr Book Group on Daily Kos
The Schedule
January 7 – Introduce the Book Group – FrankCornish
January 14 – Book Introduction – FrankCornish
January 21 – Chapter 1 – NLinStPaul
January 28 – Chapter 2 – dirkster42
February 4 – Chapter 3 – NLinStPaul
February 11 – Chapter 4 – FrankCornish
February 18 – Chapter 5 - dirkster42
February 25 – Chapter 6 - NLinStPaul
March 4 – Chapter 7 - dirkster42
March 11 - Chapter 8 - FrankCornish
March 18 – Chapter 9 - dirkster42
March 25 – Chapter 10 – NLinStPaul
So, what does this mean? It means if you have not acquired the book by now, you have until next Thursday to get a hold of it in order to start with the rest of us. We really hope that many will participate, and we are counting on the intelligence and insight of the DailyKos community to make this the most rewarding reading experience for everyone. In case you are not convinced, what follows here is a some quick info of Moral Man and Immoral Society, a short biography of Reinhold Niebuhr, and some contextual notes for the Introduction that we will discuss next week. This should help with your reading or hopefully convince you to join in.
Moral Man and Immoral Society
This book was published shortly after Niebuhr took his position at the Union Theological Seminary in New York. As can be gleaned from the title, the book generally deals with the contradiction between moral individual behavior and the immoral behavior of groups, whether they are social constructions, race-based groups or nations. In many ways it is analogous to the commonly observed phenomenon that when polled, people approve of their Congressperson, but hold Congress, in general, in low regard. They know their Representative as a person, and view their individual behavior, but Congress as a collective almost always appears immoral and inclined to deal-making. Further, as Niebuhr described in the Preface of the re-published 1960 edition:
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. This difference ought not to make for a moral cynicism, that is, the belief that the collective must simply follow its own interests. But if the difference is real, as I think it is, it refutes many still prevalent moralistic approaches to the political order.
Brief Biography--Highlights taken from Gabriel Fackre's The Promise of Reinhold Niebuhr, originally published in 1970, re-published in 1994.
Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr was born in Wright City, MO on June 21, 1892. His father was a reverend in a Lutheran offshoot church, Evangelical Synod. Admiring his father, "Reinie" followed in his footsteps and attended Elmhurst College in Chicago, followed by Eden Theological Seminary, in Webster Groves, MO. He later received an MA from Yale.
From 1915 to 1928 he was a pastor in Detroit. His work in Detroit introduced him to a number of issues and significantly formed a portion of his world view. He saw Ford's high wages, high profits and anti-union positions first hand, and he knew there was a dark side to Ford's positive public relations image. He participated in interactive groups that addressed many social/political issues including race relations and cooperation between religious groups. In addition African American families did attend his church, which is no small thing in the late 1920s, as society was strictly segregated North and South. In 1928, he accepted a position at the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
In 1929 his position at Union gave him greater latitude. He read Marx, registered with the Socialist Party in 1930 and moved in radical circles. His declaration was to "move politically to the left, and theologically to the right." In the 1930s he rejected the Utopian Socialist ideas of Marxism and early on identified Nazism as a new and dangerous force. The Nazi Problem caused him to abandon his pacifist beliefs.
On the personal side, Ursula Keppel-Compton, an Oxford student, came to Union Theological Seminary in 1930, and she married Reinhold in 1931. Ursula later taught at Barnard College. They had two children, Christopher and Elisabeth. Out of his family life he became known for the published and widely distributed prayer, "O God, give us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, courage to change what should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other."
From his prolific and prescient writing of the 1930s he became widely known and provided a great deal of intellectual foundation for American Foreign Policy during World War II and immediate postwar period. After 1960 he went into semi-retirement. He died June 1, 1971.
Context for Next Week's Topic the Introduction to Moral Man and Immoral Society
Because Moral Man and Immoral Society was published in 1932 some of the people and events mentioned might be less familiar to a contemporary audience. For that reason, the following is just a list and a bit of background information on the items you will encounter reading through the Introduction. There are quite a few, but don't despair, it does not continue at this rate throughout the book. The main chapters concentrate more on Niebuhr's core arguments and ideas.
John Dewey--A towering figure in a number of movements from the late 19th Century. Dewey was a major intellectual figure of the Progressive Movement and a proponent of the reforming potential of education. He taught at Columbia University and is also closely associated with American Pragmatism. Pragmatism bound together philosophical and scientific disciplines in the pursuit of and almost religious belief in "Progress."
Kimball Young--A Mormon Social Scientist who graduated from BYU and received a PhD in Psychology from Stanford. He was generally part of Sociology emerging as a discipline and he taught at the University of Wisconsin and Queens College and was president of the American Sociological Society in 1943. He was generally conservative politically.
Hornell Hart--Sociology Professor at Duke after receiving his PhD from the State University of Iowa. In addition to sociological theory he also wrote extensively on Parapsychology.
Howard Odum--A Sociology professor who received a PhD from Columbia. He established the Sociology department at the University of North Carolina. He also advocated for equal opportunity for African Americans.
Sociology--The early years of Sociology as a discipline are full of controversy as many practitioners used the discipline to justify racism. In the aftermath of WW II, this changed in both perception and reality.
Owen Young--A lawyer by training who became Chairman of GE. At GE he became somewhat symbolic of a "New Capitalism" that sought to provide better working conditions and seek co-operation in labor relations. Young became influential in Wilson's administration and participated in re-negotiating Germany's reparations schedule in the Dawes Plan in 1924. Ironically, he was Time's "Man of the Year" in 1929.
Ramsay MacDonald--Labour Party prime minister of the UK in 1924 and 1929. The World Depression and ensuing crisis spilled over to politics as he left the Labour Party in 1931 and formed a National Government with Conservative MPs. Many in the Labour Party always regarded him as a traitor.
Related to Niebuhr's theology:
Karl Barth (1886-1968): Swiss Reformed theologian who broke with liberal Protestant theology in favor of Neo-Orthodoxy. In contrast to liberal Protestantism, which saw religion as a cultural product and the Bible as a historically determined document, Barth favored a return to a notion of biblical revelation and God's self-disclosure entirely through Christ and no other means. While conservative theologically, his perspective was crucial for the critique of the German churches' capitulation to Nazi ideology. Some theologians classify Niebuhr as a Neo-Orthodox theologian, others classify him as a liberal theologian. (dirkster42)
Kellogg-Briand Pact--referred to in the Introduction as the Kellogg Pact, it refers to an international agreement that outlawed war as an instrument of policy in 1928. It is named for the US Secretary of State--Kellogg and the French Foreign Minister--Briand. Technically, it is still in force. At the time the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in September of 1931 it was put to its' first real test--which it subsequently failed.
League of Nations--The precursor to the United Nations that was established as a part of Wilson's idealism and the Treaty of Versailles. The League was seen as an attempt to have a standing body to resolve international disputes, and give further organization to the accumulation of international law.
Going Forward
I am sure that there are many Kossacks out there who can add significantly to the information provided above. Please do so in the comments. This is a collective here, and contributions are highly valued.
Let's all work hard to maintain civility, and try to keep the focus on the topics at hand. I realize that there will be loads of chances to extrapolate Niebuhr's ideas to many possible applications. I am not trying to discourage any of that, but do try to keep things centered on the text and examples that substantiate or refute his arguments. In addition, as I stated in a previous diary:
I should point out as well, however, that we do not expect this to be a Niebuhr worship session. I am sure that significant aspects of his work did not necessarily pan out. The important thing, as with all such writers, is to find what is valuable and what informs us of the depths of the human condition and to help us understand the moral imperatives of our current moment.
Good Luck, and happy reading. Let's have a great discussion below, and we'll see you next week as well.