However some people do connect with the abstract issues, so perhaps have
a mixture of human interest, real world, and at least a few abstract issues.
These do not depend upon the highest ethical commitments
of which men are capable, but upon that
mixture of human sympathy, rationality and self -
interest which constitutes the basic pattern
of human motivation While Niebuhr is a realist about the possibilities
of human justice he has a strong concern for the social reformism in politics which characterizes modern democracy and the Christian social Gospel.