"The Irony of Virtuous Evil"

First published in 1952 by Charles Scribner’s Sons, Reinhold Niebuhr’s book entitled The Irony of American History is again available in a new edition from the University of Chicago Press.

You might think, "That’s nice. But how can a book written in 1952 be relevant now?" And that would be a very appropriate question. So my reply is, "The Olympics." Which itself might bring up a host of other questions and, therefore, requires an extended explanation –

While attending the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games this summer President Bush made some fairly remarkable pronouncements. He was being interviewed on television by Bob Costas and Bob asked him how he felt about the recent military confrontation between Russia and Georgia. Part of the conversation, as quoted on whitehouse.gov, proceeded as follows:

COSTAS: Moving away from China for just a second. During the Opening Ceremony we saw you conferring with Vladimir Putin.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

COSTAS: We now know you were talking about the conflict that had erupted that day…

THE PRESIDENT: That's true.

COSTAS: …between Russia and Georgia. Now, Georgia is a former Soviet republic that is sympathetic to the West…

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

COSTAS: …and that is attempting to embody many Western values. But just as you need China, you need Russia strategically around the globe. You’ve got to walk a fine line. What did you say to Putin?

THE PRESIDENT: I said this violence is unacceptable… I not only said it to Vladimir Putin, I've said it to the President of the country, Dmitriy Medvedev. And my administration has been engaged with both sides in this, trying to get a cease-fire, and saying that the status quo ante for all troops should be August 6th. And, look, I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia.

It was just interesting to me that here we are trying to promote peace and harmony and we're witnessing a conflict take place.

COSTAS: Right, no Olympic truce in this case.

THE PRESIDENT: There wasn't. And I was very firm with Vladimir Putin... he and I have got a good relationship… just like I was firm with the Russian President. And hopefully this will get resolved peacefully. There needs to be an international mediation there for the South Ossetia issue.


Earlier in Washington, according to AFP.com, President Bush warned Russia to end its conflict in Georgia, claiming that Russia might be attempting to overthrow Georgia’s government. He also strongly urged Moscow to accept a Europe-backed peace plan that included a pulling back of all military forces.

He asserted:

Russia's government must respect Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty. The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on and accept this peace agreement as a first step toward resolving this conflict….Russia's actions this week have raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region. These actions have substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world.

"Hmmm," you might say, "That sounds a lot like what’s been going on in Iraq for nearly six years… and how the world feels about it." "How ironic," Niebuhr might exclaim.

You see, Niebuhr’s book was a bit of a prescient warning. Niebuhr suggested that no matter what altruistic and noble and righteous motives we attribute to our actions, we very likely have some selfish and unwholesome motives lurking underneath. Therefore, we must be very, very careful when we choose to exercise power.

He even more strongly cautions us against:

"…Those who are ready to cover every ambiguity of good and evil in our actions by the frantic insistence that any measure taken in a good cause must be unequivocally virtuous."

p. 5

Claiming that the power of human self-deception is apparently endless Niebuhr goes on to quote John Adams:

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws. Our passions, ambitions, avarice, love and resentment, etc., possess so much metaphysical subtlety and so much overpowering eloquence that they insinuate themselves into the understanding and the conscience and convert both to their party."

p. 21

And then Niebuhr observes:

"For the fact is that every nation is caught in the moral paradox of refusing to go to war unless it can be proved that the national interest is imperiled, and of continuing in the war only by proving that something much more than national interest is at stake."

p. 36

And according to Niebuhr, America from its beginning has been in possession of a messianic consciousness and a messianic dream, that is, we were chosen by the creator to lead the world from barbarism and night into the shining dawn of a New Jerusalem.

So once again he warns us:

"But the American experience represents a particularly unique and ironic refutation of the illusion in all such dreams. The illusion about the possibility of managing historical destiny from any particular standpoint in history… miscalculations about both the power and the wisdom of the managers and of the weakness and the manageability of… [that] which is to be managed.

"Consistent with the… hope of redeeming history, the American Messianic dream is vague about the political or other power which would be required to subject all recalcitrant wills to the one will which is informed by the true vision….

"Today the success of America in world politics depends upon its ability to establish community with many nations, despite the hazards created by pride of power on the one hand and the envy of the weak on the other. This success requires a modest awareness of the contingent elements in the values and ideals of our devotion, even when they appear to us to be universally valid; and a generous appreciation of the valid elements in the practices and institutions of other nations though they deviate from our own. In other words, our success in world politics necessitates a disavowal of the pretentious elements in our original dream, and a recognition of the values and virtues which enter into history in unpredictable ways…"

p. 72, 79

Therefore, according to Niebuhr, we must avoid at all cost substituting a more grievous error for the error that we are challenging. And one of the errors we may impose through substitution is the notion that an immoral behavior committed by someone who is considered good becomes moral. And by the same token an identical behavior when committed by someone who is considered evil remains immutably immoral. In other words, the act itself is viewed completely differently depending on whether the actor is first seen as good or evil.

Obviously our current administration sees itself as chosen of God and as being his moral agent. It also sees those who would oppose this moral agency as evil doers. Therefore, the behavior of this administration is considered to be quite different from that of the evil doers even if it is, in fact, exactly the same. And through the same manipulation any irony regarding the pot calling the kettle black is lost.

President Bush seems quite fond of quoting the Bible, especially the passage that admonishes us to clear the log from our own eye before criticizing the speck in another’s. Perhaps even this irony is lost as he admonishes Putin and Medvedev to respect another country’s sovereignty, and the opinion of the rest of the world, because he himself is trying so very hard to promote peace and harmony. Perhaps it even becomes a divine comedy that Dante in his more ambitious moments would applaud.