Monday, October 12, 1998

Nation caught between love, justice

By WILLIAM McKENZIE

The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS - If nothing else, the numbing episode that President Clinton has thrust the nation into has provided a fascinating interplay between love and justice. The two sometimes competing ideals are at the core of the national discussion over Clinton's fate. The nation seems to be trying to find the proper balance between forgiving "70 times seven" and holding its leader accountable.

Exacerbating the tension are the contrasting roles that individuals and the state play in this delicate balancing act. The late theologian Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society deals neatly with this dilemma. For that reason alone, his 1930s classic should be required reading for students of politics and ethics. Sixty years later, his insights could help us work through our confusing national moment.

Niebuhr, who taught for four decades at Union Theological Seminary in New York, argues there are distinctions between the way individuals and societies reach decisions. Those differences can lead to separate conclusions and toward different goals.

About individuals, Niebuhr wrote:

"Individual men may be moral in the sense that they are able to consider interests other than their own in determining problems of conduct. They are endowed by nature with a measure of sympathy and consideration for their own kind."

In other words, individuals may be able to turn the other cheek and accept another person's request for understanding. This could explain why some Americans have apparently embraced Clinton's plea for forgiveness and have shown an interest in moving beyond the sex-and-perjury charges.

Consider the Sept. 25 New York Times/CBS News poll. It shows 43 percent of Americans want the matter dismissed entirely, including 16 percent of conservative Republicans. The Sept. 25 CNN poll likewise shows more than 60 percent of respondents don't want the president to resign or to be impeached.

Now, I'm sure some poll respondents are simply tired of the whole mess and want to dismiss it for that reason alone. But maybe the polling data reveals more than indifference.

Perhaps it also reflects among some Americans the "sympathy" and "consideration" that Reinhold Niebuhr says is at work in individuals.

But here's the problem. Because President Clinton may have broken some laws, the larger American society must also play a role in deciding his fate. This ushers in a new set of factors that complicate the debate. As Niebuhr says, impulses other than "sympathy" and "consideration" are at work in group dynamics.

"As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other," the theologian says. "As racial, economic and national groups, they take for themselves whatever their power can command. There is not enough imagination in any social group to render it amenable to the influence of pure love."

This assessment of larger groups like the state probably sounds bleak or even simplistic. But like it or not, a thirst for power is clearly a characteristic of most groups. Why else are some Republicans rushing to take advantage of Clinton's fall? And why did some Democrats prey upon Richard Nixon's decline? For a simple reason: Power is involved.

Still, larger groups must fight their limitations and strive for more than self-interest. "The sad duty of politics is to establish justice," Niebuhr explains.

Hence, the great drama at work in the House of Representatives. On Thursday, the House voted to launch an inquiry into whether articles of impeachment should be drafted against President Clinton.

That move probably upsets some Americans who want to accept the president back home as a prodigal son. But the House's work is warranted, even if it could become unruly. "The selfishness of human communities must be regarded as an inevitability," Niebuhr claims. "Where it is inordinate it can be checked only by competing assertions of interest."

So be prepared for Democrats and Republicans to posture for several months as they try to keep each other in check. But don't be confused. This task is the larger society's obligation. As individuals, we may want to forgive someone who has transgressed. But as Niebuhr writes, "From the perspective of society the highest moral ideal is justice."

William McKenzie is a Dallas Morning News editorial writer and columnist. Readers may write to him at the Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, Dallas, TX 75265.

Knight Ridder/Tribune Services