"I have always regarded global development as a struggle between the forces of good and evil. Not to be simplified as a struggle between Jesus and Satan, since I do not consider that the process is restricted to our own sphere of culture"
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Moral language underlies the statement, but it is carefully pried away from sectarian frames. The struggle between good and evil is not presented as a cosmic melodrama or a Christian parable; it is a description of the ethical stakes built into policy, diplomacy, and the distribution of power on a global scale. By refusing to cast the issue as Jesus versus Satan, Alva Myrdal rejects a parochial lens that would confine moral judgment to Western religious imagery. She insists that the values at stake in development are universal and intelligible across cultures, and that the world’s problems and remedies cannot be monopolized by one tradition.
That stance matches her career as a Swedish social democrat, diplomat, and Nobel Peace laureate known for disarmament and social reform. Development, in her view, is not just GDP growth or institutional modernization; it is a battleground where human dignity, equality, and peace contend with exploitation, militarism, and indifference. Poverty, colonization, and the nuclear arms race are not neutral phenomena but embodiments of preventable harm. To describe them as evil is to place responsibility on human choices rather than on fate or providence.
The phrase our own sphere of culture signals a critique of Eurocentrism. Mid-twentieth-century development debates were often framed through Western models and Cold War ideologies. Myrdal’s formulation opens space for plural sources of ethical authority: humanist, religious, and philosophical traditions from many societies. That pluralism does not dilute moral clarity; it strengthens it by making common cause possible across borders. Cooperation in the United Nations, negotiation tables, and welfare reforms becomes, in that light, an active alignment with good.
There is also a warning here. Simplified binaries invite self-righteousness and cultural imperialism. Yet abandoning moral language altogether invites technocracy without conscience. Myrdal chooses a third path: a universal ethical struggle articulated in terms that different cultures can own, mobilizing shared standards of justice to guide practical work on peace and development.
That stance matches her career as a Swedish social democrat, diplomat, and Nobel Peace laureate known for disarmament and social reform. Development, in her view, is not just GDP growth or institutional modernization; it is a battleground where human dignity, equality, and peace contend with exploitation, militarism, and indifference. Poverty, colonization, and the nuclear arms race are not neutral phenomena but embodiments of preventable harm. To describe them as evil is to place responsibility on human choices rather than on fate or providence.
The phrase our own sphere of culture signals a critique of Eurocentrism. Mid-twentieth-century development debates were often framed through Western models and Cold War ideologies. Myrdal’s formulation opens space for plural sources of ethical authority: humanist, religious, and philosophical traditions from many societies. That pluralism does not dilute moral clarity; it strengthens it by making common cause possible across borders. Cooperation in the United Nations, negotiation tables, and welfare reforms becomes, in that light, an active alignment with good.
There is also a warning here. Simplified binaries invite self-righteousness and cultural imperialism. Yet abandoning moral language altogether invites technocracy without conscience. Myrdal chooses a third path: a universal ethical struggle articulated in terms that different cultures can own, mobilizing shared standards of justice to guide practical work on peace and development.
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| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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