-
Website
http://willwilkinson.net/flybottle -
Original page
http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2008/11/05/one-night-of-romance/ -
Subscribe
All Comments -
Community
-
-
Top Commenters
-
Popular Threads
All Comments
The fact is that many people get into politics for the right reasons, and some of them are able to preserve these salutary motivations even as they make ineluctable concessions to necessary evils. That's hard. Politics is an ugly, unseemly game. It's not one I'd want to play. But if you agree that we need someone to play it, you'd have to agree there's a touch of romance in a competent, fundamentally decent person's stepping up to the plate.
So you're happy a black man won a very high-status position, but in general you wish it wasn't so high-status? You recognize (and in this case applaud) the power of politics to drive an effectual national narrative, but in general you wish that politics didn't drive effectual national narratives?
Basically, the issue of race is so important that you're willing to hijack our misguided romanticization of power to make an advance on the issue of race, but you don't see any other issue as important enough to require (or even justify) this devil's game of national narratives?
Aren't there political principles that deserve our energized, passionate and hopeful support? If so, how would we distinguish this from "too much romanticization of politics?"
Looking at the narratives driven by the past few presidents... Clinton represented a new generation and the end of trickle down economics; Bush represented (perhaps) the ascendancy of the cultural right, and the determination to project American power abroad and go after terrorists. Obama represents racial reconciliation, the end of a failed war, and economic policies that transfer more wealth to lower quintiles.
Are these the narratives (excluding racial reconciliation) that you think are harmful? Because to me they're just attempts to understand what the voters are saying. We may attach the narrative to the candidate, but the narratives and hopes we attach are fairly specific, no? This is unlike the perhaps vacuous "Camelot" mythology surrounding JFK (and isn't there much more of that because he was assassinated?).
I read you to be saying that vacuous romance -- the mythology of power -- holds a lot of sway. But I'm not so sure about that. You could be right, but I don't necessarily see it.
You might see thronging in the streets if a president was elected on the promise to end a failed war. Would this be a bad thronging, or is it a special case?
However, none of this is meant to detract from the enormity of the fact that a black man has just been elected president. I honestly would never have guessed that such a thing would have happened this early in the new millennium, but that fact that it did is fantastic.
For shame, Mr. Sparks, for shame.
I think it is safe to say that, like all of his predecessors, the new president will rely on this 'sounding board' in his decision-making, while, ultimately making the decisions himself.
Senator Obama has said that he will work with the GOP in a bipartisan manner. This won't be necessary for some time as he will receive a lengthy honeymoon from the press. Any attempts to offer an olive branch across the aisle will be very positive and could even result in meaningful (here's that word) change.
Like all newly-elected presidents, our latest one deserves a chance to prove that he can be a positive and productive leader. They don't always get it. I hope he makes the most of it.
Virginia Postrel has a piece up on her blog that echoes what I was thinking when Mr. Obama's victory set in for me. Now that he is the SITTING LEADER, all the paraphernalia; the tri-color face, the Dear Leaderesque shirts and posters and other images will start to seem less seemingly inspirational and more creepy. He is no longer the scrappy minority bucking the evil white Republican status quo - a hip pop statement indeed - he IS the status quo. I wonder if the Obama idolatry will persist, wane, or intensify now that he is, for lack of a better word ... THE MAN.
Your thoughts?
www.cinemagraphic.blogspot.com
I think references to the romantic view of government should always be accompanied by a link to Dan Klein's paper: The People’s Romance: Why People Love Government (as Much as They Do).
As for advice to Obama, I dream of him considering using his political capital to end or at least draw-down the War On Drugs. That would help with the budget, crime, civil rights, prison over-crowding, law-enforcement corruption, obsticles to minority success...
I know it's just a dream. But, it's a nice one.
This might be the best thing written about this election. I live in San Francisco and I, like everybody else, am excited about the Obama presidency. But it scares me and pisses me off to see so many otherwise intelligent, skeptical people treating him as a savior or a saint. It isn't healthy to drink that much Kool-aid. Thank you for saying what I've been feeling in such an eloquent and persuasive way. I worry about my friends when they sober up and the disappointment begins.
That bit reminded me of what Glen Whitman wrote after the Democrats recaptured congress in 2006:
"I am really looking forward to hating Democrats again. I’m tired of hating Republicans."
It's nice to see that those sharing your views are so unselfconscious in their enthusiasm as to use fresh 'n' tasty idioms about drinking Kool-Aid, and misuse words like "enormity," without irony.
Who needs irony?
Such a crowd enjoys, even needs, the sort of relentless condescension you offer in your piece about the totalitarian impulse simmering beneath the support that Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, Semites, Caucasians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and several erstwhile Republicans, demonstrated for Senator Obama.
The joyful, ritualistic invocation of a leader's name, the posting of "romanticized" portraits of him on walls both private and public, are symptoms of acute fascism. As proof, we need consider but the liturgical churches, such as the Anglican Communion, whose adherents incessantly chant, sing, and yodel the name "Jesus Christ," and decorate their homes, offices, and automobiles with symbols and pictures of his alleged martyrdom. (And as far as scary "victorious" leaders are concerned, how about one believed by his followers to be "victorious" over death? Yikes!) If the Anglican Communion hasn't steadfastly called for the arrest and imprisonment of libertarians and other assorted Ayn Rand enthusiasts, then no one has.
The expression of even the most artless admiration for any kind of leader, particularly a political one, is an open invitation to totalitarianism and the destruction of all the rights we hold most dear. Had our current president and vice-president been objects of ritualized adoration, they most certainly would have done everything in their power to subvert the rule of law and destroy the constitutionally guaranteed stuff that makes America such a really, really neat and fantastic country.
Thank God you had the courage to stomp your shiny little boot on the throat of unchecked Obamanism, even while you dried your tears over Obama's victory.
Yours in gratitude, but not adoration,
Tiffany Oakeshott
Just puzzled that there are people who admire writing so poorly reasoned as to seem unhinged.
Has anyone, even Wilkinson himself, followed his thoughts, one after the other, to see where they might lead?
For example: his apparent advocacy for the public's adoption of Buddhist-like non-attachment to politicians, lest we regard them as our "leaders."
What on earth could this possibly mean? In precisely which alternate reality does this make sense?
Just how would Wilkinsonian non-attachment have played out in, say, early April, 1963, in Birmingham, Alabama?
"Pay no attention to the attack dogs ripping flesh from your thighs because GOVERNOR WALLACE IS NOT OUR 'LEADER'! Do NOT surrender to the totalitarian impulse! IGNORE THE ATTACK DOGS! Governor Wallace is only a PUBLIC SERVANT! And because he's a PUBLIC SERVANT the attack dogs ripping flesh from your thighs ARE NOT REAL! OR AT LEAST NOT ENTIRELY REAL!"
Oh, good grief. If an outpouring of enthusiasm and warm sentiment for Senator Obama is the creation of a "personality cult" leading inexorably to totalitarian dictatorship, then why, oh why, did our nation's generalized mistrust of and disdain for our current president not lead inexorably to communist anarchism?
Mind you, I'm not asking that Wilkinson's arguments be scientifically verifiable, only that they be grounded even vaguely in the commonplaces of American history as the majority of sane, educated adults have experienced them.
Wilkinson's arguments make no sense because he lacks the moral imagination to admit that his thinking about Obama is conflicted and confused.
On the one hand he's justifiably moved by the fact that Obama's victory signals a preliminary resolution to America's long history of violent racism.
On the other hand, he can't but feel that there's something unsettling about so many people expressing so much admiration for Obama and so much happiness over his victory.
Since there's no evidence whatsoever that the US has so much as flirted with cults of personality or totalitarian dictatorship, Wilkinson knows that Obama-mania is in all likelihood benign. But in the absence of moral imagination, Wilkinson decides to just go with the totalitarianism angle and work it as best he can.
Were Wilkinson honest, he'd say that, deep down, his regard for African Americans is such that overwhelming admiration and support for a black president can mean only that something sinister's at work.
He believes that it's natural for people who aren't African American to despise African Americans.
And he almost certainly believes this while knowing that it absolutely betrays what's best in him.
But he believes it nonetheless.
Which is why he cried on election night.
As I said in my commentary, this is not the Super Bowl, a New Top Model, an American Idol, the Oscars or an apocalyptic smackdown. It simply should be a job interview, and we are the employer.
On a related note, I wish people would stop referring to the president as "our commander-in-chief." Unless you are actively serving in the military, we do not have a commander-in-chief, any more than we have a sergeant. And he should not be "taking power," the phrase used by the media.
An acquaintance of mine even said he heard NPR saying Obama could have "eight years to rule." As my friend put it, the word you're looking for is "serve."
An acquaintance
In other words, partisanship succeeds, and begets more partisanship. Politics is ugly.
And yet, (1) we agree that governance is important, and (2) we each want our ideas to win out. So what's an intellectually honest person to do?
If all the intellectually honest people avoided politics, or didn't vote out of cynicism, that would be a terrible result. So what's the right thing to do? I don't quite know.
Certainly one can support a set of ideas, but remain willing to give one's own side grief when it's not living up to those ideas. That's fine.
But that's not enough. Partisanship, romance, hero-worship -- these things work, politically. They are part of the equilibrium of democratic politics. What if you really care that policy XYZ is enacted? What if that's your passion? Is a sacrifice of some intellectual independence, of some rationality, so wrong? It's a prisoner's dilemma -- if only one side is willing to sacrifice some rationality, that group has a political advantage. Do you want to yield that advantage in the name of rationality and independence?
I agree that politics would be different in a perfect world. But given this world, are you really sure that you can justify non-participation in the uglier side of politics, even at the cost of undermining the policies you advocate for?
I'm not saying this is an easy decision. And we can fight for more rationality in general even as we suspend it for this or that particular battle. Will (and Brad and other commenters) make good points. But I'm saying there are believable arguments on both sides of the question.
Drew Westing just wrote an essay that touches on this subject on CNN's web site today:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/06/westen.w...
Westin basically concludes that Obama is the both of best worlds, in that he can think like a professor and "inspire like a preacher." Again, we each have to determine the amounts of those two items (think vs. inspire) that we feel comfortable with coming from our candidates and poltical leaders. I lean more toward the former and less toward the latter. As a liberal who often votes Democratic, I did find this passage from Westin to be a little disturbing:
"And (Democrats) finally abandoned the approach to campaigning that has been their downfall for generations: peppering voters with facts, figures, and policy positions and assuming they will see what a rational choice the candidate is."
Obama is to our leader. So are our Congresscritters and mayors. We elect them to lead with certain limitations. That is what representatives do in our form of goverment.
I note that Andrew Sullivan gave it an "amen", which is interesting given that he is completed besotted with the president-elect.
In fact, at the same time, I think that Obama's election has changed this country for the better. And, the fact that it was Obama, and that race played (at least on the part of the official campaigns) such a small part in the race itself is also a very positive thing. Obama was not elected because he was going to be America's first black president. There are plenty of people out there who would love to run specifically to become America's first black president, and I'm glad that Obama beat Jesse, Louis, and the rest of them to it. Eventually, America would get so self-conscious of not having had a minority of women president that just race would have been enough to get someone elected, and to define their presidency. I don't think that will be the case with Obama. I don't think that Obama, the press, or the people of this country, will let "being the first black president" be enough. He will have to, and hopefully will, achieve more.
http://thezspot.today.com
http://gamingtips.today.com