BLUF:
[The American Interest] For all this we can blame the Nazis, because the moral ricochet over time is clear, and it is in many ways very noble. It’s nice that the Germans want to be moral, isn’t it? But absent a heavy doze of Niebuhrian moral realism, they now risk letting dead Nazis derange living thought from beyond the grave. At this point, sober Germans are worried about money, about what all this will cost. But this is not really about money. It’s about much more important kinds of business, political business ultimately, and politics is trump.
I would love to be proved wrong about all this. But the derangement of moral reasoning in Western Europe seems so advanced and deep that it is hard to be optimistic. One fears that if reasonable people do not somehow apply a brake to this wild excess of selfless saintliness, unreasonable people eventually will. And guess who might still be around to cheer, encourage, and perhaps even arm the unreasonable? Yes, Vlad the Putin himself, as he is indeed already doing in a minor key. Then there will be a problem, and it will ultimately be a problem for Americans as well as for Europeans. Doesn’t it always go like that, again, whether we like it or not?
The 'moral ricochet', a profoundly accurate assessment. I have actually heard Germans describe the condition in similar terms. But before we label the Germans 'insane', a little self-examination. There are many familiar examples of our own moral ricochets; 'The Civil Rights Movement' and 'The Great Society' are but two.
Lastly, a ricochet can be just as deadly as a well placed shot. |