Cesca's Mash-up
O.k., normally I don't watch stuff like this. And I advise you to do the same. Most of us have a rather tenuous grasp on rationality when it comes to politics anyway, and I can't help but worry that such blatant tugging on our heart strings is playing with fire.
But dang, I liked it pretty much. And over the course of the last five years or so (and under the insidious influence of C. S. Peirce), I've begun thinking that our sentiments are far more important than I'd previously believed. Which is no excuse for succumbing to manipulation, of course. Not that the mash-up is necessarily manipulative. After the godawful disaster of the last seven years, I think we can all be forgiven for giving in a bit to our emotions when we see a glimmer of hope. Though, of course, it's rather too easy to become too emotional in politics.
I think that part of Obama's allure for people like me has to do with his ability to tap into the love and patriotism we feel for the U.S. in a way that is free of the mindless, nationalistic, tribalistic overtones that usually surround patriotic appeals and assertions. You don't have to go very far right before such appeals take on an alarming tone. And, of course, if you go left enough you'll encounter those who sneer at and deride any such appeals. That leaves folks like me, who's patriotic sentiments run strong, but deep under the surface, in a strange state. Doesn't anybody love this country for the right reasons? I sometimes find myself wondering. Instead of smug satisfaction with what we are, Obama tries to instill in us rational hopes about what we might become.
Powerful stuff, man. Very powerful stuff.
Incidentally, one of the things I was reminded of while watching this was that it really isn't Obama's speaking style or rhetorical skills that are so powerful--though they are good. Rather it's the things he's saying. People try to dismiss him as just a rhetorician, or his message as just words, but I don't think that's so. I think it's the ideas that the powerful thing. As others have noted, e.g. "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal..." etc. is hardly "just words."
Well, anyway. That's where I am today.
O.k., normally I don't watch stuff like this. And I advise you to do the same. Most of us have a rather tenuous grasp on rationality when it comes to politics anyway, and I can't help but worry that such blatant tugging on our heart strings is playing with fire.
But dang, I liked it pretty much. And over the course of the last five years or so (and under the insidious influence of C. S. Peirce), I've begun thinking that our sentiments are far more important than I'd previously believed. Which is no excuse for succumbing to manipulation, of course. Not that the mash-up is necessarily manipulative. After the godawful disaster of the last seven years, I think we can all be forgiven for giving in a bit to our emotions when we see a glimmer of hope. Though, of course, it's rather too easy to become too emotional in politics.
I think that part of Obama's allure for people like me has to do with his ability to tap into the love and patriotism we feel for the U.S. in a way that is free of the mindless, nationalistic, tribalistic overtones that usually surround patriotic appeals and assertions. You don't have to go very far right before such appeals take on an alarming tone. And, of course, if you go left enough you'll encounter those who sneer at and deride any such appeals. That leaves folks like me, who's patriotic sentiments run strong, but deep under the surface, in a strange state. Doesn't anybody love this country for the right reasons? I sometimes find myself wondering. Instead of smug satisfaction with what we are, Obama tries to instill in us rational hopes about what we might become.
Powerful stuff, man. Very powerful stuff.
Incidentally, one of the things I was reminded of while watching this was that it really isn't Obama's speaking style or rhetorical skills that are so powerful--though they are good. Rather it's the things he's saying. People try to dismiss him as just a rhetorician, or his message as just words, but I don't think that's so. I think it's the ideas that the powerful thing. As others have noted, e.g. "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal..." etc. is hardly "just words."
Well, anyway. That's where I am today.
posted by Winston Smith at
1:06 PM
3 Comments:
I couldn't agree with your sentiments more. Policy wise I agree very little with Obama. But his inspiring of a kind of 21st century American excepentionalism is hard to disagree with. Earlier in the campaign I remember watching one of his speeches and the crowd continually cut him off shouting "U-S-A! U-S-A!" I am not sure I had ever seen that in a demorcratic campaign rally.
Well, in the spirit of things, I'll add this:
John McWhorter, "tommed" by the orthodox black left and adopted by conservatives for his Cosby-ish view of Black America's present and future, is an enthusiastic Obama supporter.
Now McWhorter abhors the message coming from the black establishment, the anger, the "stacked deck." He finds the 30-70 year olds beyond reasoning with. [He thinks the older folks are A-OK.]
So, ironically, he believes that the antidote to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, et al's views is for the two youngest generations of black Americans to see a black president elected in 2008. The alienation, the hopelessness, the anger all given a substantive rebuttal by the American people themselves.
I find it an elegant point, and the best reason for Obama I've heard so far. A black president in 2008 would or at least could make the change in our national sentiment McWhorter foresees. All things being pretty much equal---which they aren't unfortunately, as they were in 1992---I'd go for Obama for that reason alone.
And I wish Barack Obama were running on the "I can do it, and so can you!" platform. I think he sorta started there, but the configuration of political forces has made the first post-racial candidate unable to move forward or back. To take a definitive stand on anything is to win a friend but piss somebody else off, and Obama's riding that 51-49 tiger.
Hence, the present unpleasantness, or as Sen. Obama tries to couch it, "distractions."
Yeah, I agree Brandon (though I'm probably more o.k. w/ his policies). The right likes to paint liberals as unpatriotic, but it's rather that they're merely turned off by nationalism in patriotism's clothing. There's a lot of pent-up patriotism among a certain segment of liberals, just waiting to get out.
Which is both good and potentially bad. But I'm willing to revel in the good for awhile before going back into my normal fretting mode.
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