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The article presents the views of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr on liberalism and cynicism in the U.S. politics. It is stated that Niebuhr criticized both liberalism and anti-liberal radicalism, which reflected his experience as a congregational minister of the German Evangelical Synod in Detroit, Michigan, during 1915-1928. Niebuhr criticized non-resistance, and distinguished it from non-violence. He said that non-violent resistance meant to involve oneself in coercion.

This paper examines Isaiah Berlin's discussions of the ethics of political action, and particularly his attempt to set out an ethics of political moderation -- and a moderate approach to political ethics -- that would steer between the extremes of purism and Utopian ideologies on one side, and of 'realism' (by which Berlin meant a cynical, unprincipled approach to political action) on the other. It also seeks to show that Berlin's account of both extreme idealism and 'realism' pointed to underlying similarities and connections between them, to which his own ethical stance stood opposed. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]