220
PARTISAN REVIEW
Dewey
is
presumably a child of light, but what
is
a child of
light in Niebuhr's view? He is defined by contrast to children of
darkness "who know no law beyond their will and interest." By
contrast "those who believe that self-interest
should
be brought under
the discipline of a higher law could then be termed 'the children of
light' "; 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." [My italics.]
Surely there is nothing wrong with being a child of light, then.
To believe that one should bring self-interest under a more universal
law and in harmony with a more universal good, is to act morally;
and surely the effort to act morally
is
not being attacked by Niebuhr.
One can hardly believe that he opposes the effort to bring self–
interest under law, in spite of his grotesquely false statement that
"nothing that
is
worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime."
Therefore one seeks for a more plausible explanation of what he
means.
As
we push on we see that Niebuhr may escape absurdity, but
only at the expense of making it silly to say that Dewey
is
a child
of light and at the risk of making the whole distinction between the
two kinds of children useless. In the last analysis Niebuhr may mean
by a child of light either (a) one who thinks that it is
easy
to bring
self-interest under law, or (b) one who thinks that we can bring
self-interest
completely
under a higher law, that we will reach a time
when men will
always
act so as to give only limited weight to their
own desires. But on either view of a child of light, it is preposterous
to suppose that Dewey is a child of light and doubtful to suppose
that the contrast between children of light and children of darkness
can illuminate the ideological struggles of our time. It is almost
ridiculous for Niebuhr to present his own version of the Christian
view as the only one to navigate between idiotic optimism and
equally idiotic pessimism, as if all rationalists and naturalists said
that men were gods, while their extreme opponents maintained that
they were devils, and only Niebuhr knew the middle way.
To get back to Dewey and his position in Niebuhr's scheme.
Dewey has never supposed that the way to social happiness would
be
easy,
nor has he ever said that a time would come when
all
human
action would be morally right and all tensions resolved.}The following
