Religion and Politics

Why Obama Should Read Trilling

At Tablet, Yoav Fromer argues that the disconnect between the Obama administration’s rhetoric on Syria and its failure to respond to that country’s humanitarian crisis reflects the “Morality of Inertia,” first described by the Jewish literary critic, Lionel Trilling. In April, speaking at the National Holocaust Museum, President Obama stated that “preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest and a core moral responsibility of the United States.” “And yet,” writes Fromer, “there remains a distressing discrepancy between the moral vocabulary the administration has been invoking and its willingness to uphold it through concrete actions.” 

Read at Tablet

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