QSI: The Seerah Of Prophet: The Battle Of Badr Part 7

Why is this so important? Because it is only through self-awareness that Americans can acquire a more mature appreciation of their place in history. We must remind ourselves that “Modern man lacks the humility to accept the fact that the whole drama of history is enacted in a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or management.” On this point, Niebuhr is scathing and relentless. Those who pretend to understand history’s direction and ultimate destination are, in his view, charlatans or worse. In Niebuhr’s view, history is a drama in which both the story line and the dénouement remain hidden from view. The twists and turns that the plot has already taken suggest the need for modesty in forecasting what is still to come. Unfortunately, such humility is in particularly short supply in the present-day United States. Since the beginning of the Iraq War, the American government has been engaged in setting up the United States as what Niebuhr would call “tutors of mankind in its pilgrimage to perfection.”