“The inertia of society is so stubborn that no one will move against it, if he cannot believe that it can be more easily overcome than is actually the case.”

— Reinhold Niebuhr, book Moral Man and Immoral Society

Source: Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932), p.221
Context: The naïve faith of the proletarian is the faith of the man of action. Rationality belongs to the cool observers. There is of course an element of illusion in the faith of the proletarian, as there is in all faith. But it is a necessary illusion, without which some truth is obscured. The inertia of society is so stubborn that no one will move against it, if he cannot believe that it can be more easily overcome than is actually the case.

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Reinhold Niebuhr65

American protestant theologian 1892–1971

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