SO here we are. Does everyone have their books? In case you do not--you have time to catch up. The Introduction is only 15 pages and Chapter One's discussion is next week. We are reading Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society, first published in 1932. Tonight we will be discussing the Introduction. Last week's introductory diary can be seen here: Introducing the Reinhold Niebuhr Bookclub. In case you missed it, the diary provides some background information of Niebuhr and some of the people and events referenced in the Introduction.
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 these Thursday Night Posts. Looking forward, here's the schedule:
January 14 –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
We are all looking forward to a lively discussion, and I just want to repeat a few things:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Introduction
These first pages lay out the basic argument that Niebuhr will be making throughout the book. The first premise, and thus the title is that there is a difference between the morality of the behavior of individuals, and the behavior of groups. While it remains laudable to try to get groups to behave morally, historically this has not been their tendency. Niebuhr finds moralists and religious thinkers, who believe that rationality and the wider adoption of moral principles are the key to progress, are quite blind to the nature of groups, tribes or nations. Further, the holding and exercise of power is not about enlightenment or education but about power, and power yields when confronted with power. In arguing against what Niebuhr viewed as a naive view of power he states:
...hope for recovery rests upon the possibility of developing a degree of economic disinterestedness among men of power which the entire history of mankind proves them incapable of acquiring. p. xix in the 1960 Scribner and Sons Publication
I don't really want to put any more out there than that...
So, feel free to jump right in!!!
This next section is just background info for Chapter One. Come back to it later.
Looking Forward to Next Week:
There are not nearly as many references as the Introduction, so this section should be pretty short.
Gracchi--two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius, who worked in pre-imperial Rome for land reform. They tried and failed to keep the noble classes from gaining control of ever larger pieces of land.
Siculus--1st Century BC Greek historian who compiled a multi-volume history pre-dating but also including Greece.
Scylla and Charybdis--two sea monsters of Greek Mythology situated such that it was very difficult to avoid both when sailing between them.
That's all for next week. Happy reading.