his stuff once. (T here was supposed to be a chapter about him in
one of my books—but the publisher thought it would be too arcane
for the audience, so I didn’t include it.) T he intellectual level is
depressingly low—you can hardly keep a straight face.
But something made him appealing—his concept of the “paradox
of grace.” What it comes down to is this: No matter how much you
try to do good, you’re always going to do harm. Of course, he’s an
intellectual, so he had to dress it up with big words, but that’s what
it comes down to.
T hat’s very appealing advice for people who are planning to
enter a life of crime—to say, No matter how much I try to do good,
I’m always going to harm people. I can’t get out of it. It’s a
wonderful idea for a Mafia don. He can go ahead and do whatever he
feels like. If he harms people, Oh my God, the paradox of grace.
T hat may well explain why Niebuhr was so appealing to
American intellectuals in the post-World War II period. T hey were
preparing to enter a life of major crime. T hey were going to be
either the managers or the apologists for a period of global
conquest.
Running the world is obviously going to entail enormous crimes.
So they think, “Isn’t it nice to have this doctrine behind us? Of
course we’re superbenevolent and humane, but the paradox of
grace....”
Again, if you’re an intellectual, you dress it up and write articles
about it. T he mechanisms, however, are quite simple.
I suppose all of that is, if you like, part of our nature, but in such
a transparent way that we can’t seriously call this a theory.
Everybody knows from their own experience just about everything
that’s understood about human beings—how they act and why—if
they stop to think about it. It’s not quantum physics.
What about the so-called “competitive ethic?” Is there any evidence
that we are naturally competitive? Many proponents of free market
theory and market capitalism say you’ve got to give people the
ability to compete—it’s a natural thing.
T here are certainly conditions under which people will compete,
and there are also conditions under which people will cooperate.
For example, take a family. Suppose that whoever is providing the