Utopia Viewed from the Underside of History

Abstract

I agree with Dr. Elshtain in her essay that an uncritical progressivism or a rigid traditionalism are equally unhelpful in fruitfully engaging a complex tradition. The doctrine of sin is offered by Elshtain as a prescriptive to prevent progressive or traditional oversimplifications. The view from the underside of history, seen in this response through the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, offers a different view. From Gutiérrez's work, we learn that a cultural critique of romantic liberalism or traditionalism that does not get at the ways in which sin and evil function in society is finally going to remove human nature from history.