"We [Americans] are not prosperous because we are imperialists, we are imperialists because we are prosperous. . . We are a business people who know nothing about the intricacies of politics, expecially international politics, and in the flush of youthful pride we make no calculations of the reactions to our attitudes in the minds of others . . We hold oursleves aloof from international councils because we feel ourselves too powerful to be in need of counseling with others, but we are able to practise the deception of imagining that our superior political virtue rather than our superior economic strength makes such abstention possible and advisable . . . "For one, I've always thought Reinhold Niebuhr was an interesting person. Plus it's from one of the 1930 issues, and I'll read anything from or about the 20s or 30s. (I'm four months behind in my Atlantics, I have to be selective).
"[w]hat was any art but ... a sheath, a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose." - Willa Cather, Song of the Lark
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
1984
Catching up on the Atlantic Monthly issues I haven't read, and the magazine's "150 Years of the Atlantic" has excerpts from past articles. One, from 1930 by Reinhold Niebuhr, struck me as particularly insightful:
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At first I thought you were so far behind on your Atlantic Monthly's that you're at 1930, but no.
That's a great quote. It applies today, of course, but it makes me think of other conquering nations throughout history. There are very few examples of cultures that thrived but remained isolated and modest. Yet that imperialism always reaches an unsustainable point of growth where everything collapses.
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