Children of Light and the Human Interest
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 11 Aug 2025
René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
6 Aug 2025 – In his reflections on the nature of political ethics written in 1944 during the Second World War, the U.S. theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) stressed the need for a universalist ethic and the difficulty of achieving it. He wrote:
” Evil is always the assertion of some self-interest without regard to the whole, whether the whole be conceived as the immediate community or the total community of mankind… The children of light may thus be defined as those who seek to bring self-interest under the discipline of a more universal law and in harmony with a more universal good… The children of light must be armed with the wisdom of the children of darkness but remain free from their malice. They must know the power of self-interest in human society without giving it moral justification… Beyond the national community lies international chaos, slightly qualified by minimal forces of international cooperation. The problem of overcoming this chaos and of extending the principle of community to world-wide terms has become the most urgent of all the issues which face our epoch .” (1)
In The National Interest and the Human Interest, Robert Johansen writes:
“The challenge for policymakers now and in the future will be to bring policies which in the past have served the national interest as traditionally defined into harmony with the human interest in abolishing war and poverty and in halting gross denial of human rights and ecological decay.”
The task of strengthening the human interest against armed violence, poverty, ecological decay, and the gross violations of human rights is still before us. We must not underestimate the difficulties nor the persistence of narrow self-interest. There is much to be done. Join in this vital effort.
Note:
(1) For a biography of Reinhold Niebuhr see: Ronald H. Stone. Professor Reinhold Niebuhr (Louisville, KY, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992, 284pp) For a useful overview of Niebuhr’s articles see: Reinhold Niebuhr. Love and Justice (Louisville, KY, Westminster/John Knox Press, 1957, 309pp).
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René Wadlow is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. He is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of Transnational Perspectives.
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 11 Aug 2025.
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