Obamerica
I don’t have a visceral reaction to Barack Obama one way or the other, but I sure found his commencement address at Wesleyan to be pretty off-putting. He smugly put himself forward as an exemplar of the well-lived life, and proceeded from this to the more politically-significant solipsism of imaging how much better America would be if it were filled with people who were a lot more like Barack Obama.
After some throat-clearing, Obama gets into the meat of the speech by offering himself as a role model for the graduating seniors:
But during my first two years of college, perhaps because the values my mother had taught me –hard work, honesty, empathy – had resurfaced after a long hibernation…
I wrote letters to every organization in the country I could think of. And one day, a small group of churches on the South Side of Chicago offered me a job to come work as a community organizer in neighborhoods that had been devastated by steel plant closings. My mother and grandparents wanted me to go to law school. My friends were applying to jobs on Wall Street. Meanwhile, this organization offered me $12,000 a year plus $2,000 for an old, beat-up car.
And I said yes.
The single sentence paragraph at the end of this section has got to be my favorite part of the speech, though Obama modestly allowing that his evident virtues of hard work, honesty and empathy are due to his mother is a close second.
What’s funny about his sacrifice is that when Obama took this job, $14,000 was about the average salary for somebody getting out of college. Of course, Obama wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill college graduate; he was an Ivy-Leaguer, who graduated from Columbia with a BA in political science. A corporate career would almost certainly have been more lucrative – for a while. Last year, his family income was about $4,200,000. I don’t have the data, but I bet that compares reasonably favorably with the average household income of 1983 Columbia political science and 1991 Harvard Law School graduates. Nonetheless, Obama did sacrifice some of his expected credential-based wage premium for a number of years.
I’m pretty far from being a John McCain booster, but does Obama not get that he’s running against a guy who spent the directly analogous years of his life in a fetid jungle prison being hung upside down and beaten with sticks until his bones broke?
And I said yes. Cry me a river, pal.
It’s when Obama moves on to apply the lessons of his life to everyone in America, though, that things go from irritating to problematic.
Obama spends many paragraphs exhorting these graduates to do like Obama did, and pursue a lifetime of service:
You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should by. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s. …
Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story …
There are so many ways to serve and so much need at this defining moment in our history. You don’t have to be a community organizer or do something crazy like run for President. … One hundred and sixty-four graduates of this school have joined the Peace Corps since 2001,…
…we need you to help lead a green revolution. … a generation of volunteers to work on renewable energy projects, and teach folks about conservation, and help clean up polluted areas; if we send talented engineers and scientists abroad to help developing countries promote clean energy. …
we need an army of you to become teachers and principals …
At a time when there are children in the city of New Orleans who still spend each night in a lonely trailer, we need more of you to take a weekend or a week off from work, and head down South, and help rebuild. … Find an organization that’s fighting poverty, or a candidate who promotes policies you believe in, and find a way to help them.
At a time of war, we need you to work for peace. At a time of inequality, we need you to work for opportunity. …
…all of us will have to use the energy sources we have more wisely. Deep-rooted poverty will not be reversed overnight,… Transforming our education system … Bringing an end to the slaughter in Darfur…
And so on.
This incorporates, but is not limited to, the normal helpful advice that a completely materialistic life is usually not the most fulfilling – “With all thy getting, get understanding”. But it also incorporates the assertion that the well-lived, or at least the best-lived, life must be one centered on engagement with political affairs or a social movement. (Though notably lacking on this long, long list of potential forms of service is any mention of the military.) While he throws an occasional rhetorical bone to the idea of responsibilities to jobs and immediate families, and certainly calls out homey service at a small scale to those nearest us as admirable, I challenge anybody to read this speech in full and not conclude that Obama is presenting a hierarchical view of human flourishing that sees becoming absorbed in something big and political like transforming American society, addressing global warming or bringing and end to the slaughter in Darfur as the highest form of self-actualization.
Ironically, Obama’s vision strikes me as quite narrow. While it is surely true that striving to overcome the innate tendency to self-love is an important part of what it means to become fully human for almost every person on earth, it does not follow that the highest form of this struggle for everyone is centered on political projects or organized social movements. It also doesn’t follow that society would be better if everybody devoted more of their energies to such crusades.
At the level of individual psychology, different people are different. Shocking as it is to professional politicians (and maybe readers of political blogs), most people don’t care a whole lot about big causes. If I devote my energies to starting and running my dry cleaning business and helping to raise my kids, am I a lesser person that my neighbor who works full-time at Human Rights Watch? Surely, it is more realistic and humane to think of a healthy society as a mosaic in which different people play different roles based on temperament and circumstance.
More importantly for a presidential candidate, at the political level, would the United States really be better off if everybody spent less time at the office and devoted more of it to ameliorating global warming, stopping the killing in Darfur and joining the Peace Corps? If the U.S. were not the largest and most productive economy in the world, it would not have the world’s most powerful military, it would not have the luxury of trying to solve problems from sub-Saharan Africa to the Middle East, it would not have created awe-inspiring collective achievements like getting to the moon, and the vast majority of poor households in America would not have already have TVs, cars and air conditioning.
Where do you think all of this wealth comes from? I’ll give you a hint: not from protest rallies, public-interest internships and petition drives. One thing that reliably motivates people to work hard and produce economic output is the promise of getting more money so that they can buy things they want (a.k.a. “the big house and the nice suits”). This isn’t quite as romantic as losing yourself in service to others, but it seems to work pretty well.
Obama is not alone in de-emphasizing this. His formulation of “it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential” is amazingly close to John McCain’s frequent invocation of “some purpose higher than self-interest”. While McCain obviously has a more militaristic view of this kind of service than Obama does, he also appears to me to find life in the commercial world as morally inferior to a life of public service.
This shared attitude is very worrying. The whole American political leadership class seems to be drunk with imagined power. America represents about 20% of the world economy. This has been roughly constant for almost 30 years, but the primary geostrategic fact of our current world is the economic rise of the Asian heartland. It will be very difficult to maintain American power in the face of those who may have deeply contrary interests over the upcoming decades. Simply assuming that will always have this giant ATM machine called the American economy to pay for our political dreams, instead of devoting a lot of energy to figuring out how to make the economy continue to prosper, strikes me as a focus on pretty blossoms while ignoring the roots of the plant.
Of course, if we dig beneath even these economic roots, we find the yet-more-fundamental bedrock of American success: the habits, morals, trust and social cohesion that allow the market economy to function. Part of the reason that both Obama and McCain are selling this idea of service to a higher good is that there is a market for it. Rising economic inequality in the U.S. is driving a growing sense that we’re not all in the same boat together.
Most people recognize that there is some tendency for the pure search for private gain at the expense of the public good to consume these bedrock virtues and undermine the success of the economy in the very long-term. But Obama’s calls for joining the Peace Corps and so forth are mostly indulging an adolescent fantasy that we just need to get past our selfishness. He mentions the gigantic international competition that globalization has unleashed only in passing, in order to encourage graduates to become teachers. He doesn’t even try to focus on the point that we must find a way to improve the performance of our economy, which in practice means increasing its market orientation, or else risk being left behind. Of course, this increasing market orientation will, in turn, tend to further increase inequality, and undermine its own long-term success. Managing through this tension will be the work of statesmen over multiple presidential terms.
Figuring out how to synthesize these competing interests, and explain to new graduates how each of them can contribute in different ways, would have been the act of a statesman. Unfortunately, Obama’s guidance pretty much boils down to: Greenpeace good; Goldman, Sachs bad; U.S. Army not worth mentioning.
( cross-posted at The Corner )
Shorter Jim Manzi: ironically, Obama’s too Christian.
P.S. Apologies for the snarky, smartass tone, but the flesh is weak. There’s a lot I agree with here, and even more that’s worth engaging with.
P.P.S. Upon reflection, I’m genuinely concerned. We all remember what happened the last time the Son of Man was a President’s favourite political philosopher. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…uh, don’t get fooled again!
— Tim · May 28, 08:01 PM · #
I’ve only been lurking here for a few days, and have generally been pleased to the point of excited at several of the posts I’ve read but this one is…well…just strange.
For one thing, it has its core a complaint over something I don’t think anybody should complain about, but I’ll skip that for the moment, for the sake of chronology, to concentrate on the straw man or the misunderstanding that seems to have ignited this rant. Obama did not say that everyone should spend their life protesting nuclear proliferation or throwing blood on fur wearers or to join the Peace Corps. He said that everyone should serve their country and latch themselves to a cause greater than themselves. I don’t think it’s at all strange for anyone, let alone a politician, to request that citizens work for their country and it is certainly not at all strange for someone to encourage others to have goals outside themselves. But more importantly Obama didn’t say that you should <em>devote your life to such causes to the detriment or abandonment of everything else</em>.
A business, your hypothetical dry cleaning business, for example, does fit Obama’s model. It serves the community and it serves oneself—just as theoretically so does public service.
You’re right, if all of us gave up our jobs and worked in the non-profit sector, the nation’s wealth would dry up and the nation would founder but Obama isn’t encouraging that behavior. So to temper the fever a bit and re-ask the question you pose: Would the world be a better place if everyone devoted a few hours a week to Human Rights Watch or their local party, or any other social cause? Yes, yes it would, and no one should think any different.
You toss out another straw man at the beginning of the argument. Obama, talking about his own life and his own decisions, has nothing whatsoever to do with McCain’s choices or bad luck—however you want to interpret his role in Vietnam. Or, at the least, we can admit that what McCain did has nothing to do with the merits of Obama’s argument. The fact that Obama made sacrifices early in life and worked hard—and the fact that he might say so in a public forum—doesn’t mean he thinks that West Virginia miners don’t also work hard or make sacrifices. There is nothing galling whatsoever in Obama using himself as an example when he encourages others to pursue public service opportunities.
It’s also strange that you seem to advocate military service and applaud the successes of NASA, both of which are governmental pursuits that would fit perfectly in line with what you claim Obama is preaching.
I guess lastly I’m a little concerned over what is essentially an argument ad absurdum. Even if Obama <em>was</em> encouraging everyone in that room and across the country to pursue non-profit work, not everyone is going to do it. As a matter of fact, if 1000 public servants and nonprofit leaders got up in a row to encourage young people to do that, they wouldn’t do it. For-profit work has its own rewards and people are always going to be attracted to it. It takes a lot of work to get truly talented people into the non-profit and public service sectors and to do that sometimes passionate people have to oversell that choice to reach the right amount of folks.
It just seems really strange to me to chide someone, or get angry at them, for advocating public service as a way toward personal fulfillment.
I’m sorry, I know my counterargument here is pretty poorly laid out, although I think my points are valid enough. Obama isn’t advocating the end of the capitalist system, he isn’t denying anybody the right to choose personal goals over societal goals. What he seems to be doing is letting people know that working toward something greater than ourselves is a way of creating, pursuing, and achieving great things.
— Jim · May 28, 08:50 PM · #
Jim:
Thanks for the comment. I don’t think it was poorly laid-out at all.
Obama did not say “working for a non-profit that does things that most Democratic primary voters would find appealing is good, and doing CRM implementations and being in the army is bad”, he just provided a very long list of things we can do to make the world better, pretty much all of which involve working for a non-profit that does something that Democratic primary voters would find appealing, and none of which involve the physical defense of America or the development (other than in some very abstract sense) of its material wealth. As I said, I found this to be a dangerously narrow vision of what constitutes an admirable life on the part of someone who wants to be the political leader of the United States.
I guess that emotional reactions to Obama’s use of himself as a role model are inherently subjective. I think that when you describe the sacrifices you’ve made in order to avoid going after “the big house and the fancy suits”, but have in fact become quite wealthy and seem to have a pretty sweet gig that includes making millions of dollars per year, it invites ankle-biters like me to point out an apparent contradiction. It seemed logical, as a practical matter, to point out that the exact person he is competing with for office has made a slightly larger sacrifice. It’s like the rich guy telling a veteran in a wheel chair what tough time he had parking at the golf club.
— Jim Manzi · May 28, 09:20 PM · #
I think what you’re missing is that Obama isn’t proposing that young people devote their entire lives to public service—he didn’t. He is asking that they consider! spending a few years after college investing in something greater than the personal accumulation of wealth. How is this some terrible, dark thing? If every graduating college student spent even one year of their lives devoted to public service, I suspect the USA would be a dramatically different place. A better place.
— Andrew · May 28, 09:42 PM · #
Nor did any of them involve (one’s own) families, children, gardens, kitchens, or churches. I find this sort of world-saving, “collective salvation” stuff every bit as bothersome as you do, Jim, though for slightly different reasons.
— John · May 28, 09:47 PM · #
“It’s like the rich guy telling a veteran in a wheel chair what tough time he had parking at the golf club.”
And then stealing his lollypop.
— Dave · May 28, 09:56 PM · #
At some point, I think you have to grapple with the fact that many of us don’t think the end-all, be-all of the human condition is the pursuit of material wealth. I know that’s shocking for you. But it’s a fact, and the assumption that isn’t the case seems to underpin, well, just about everything you write about here. Look, you’re entitled to Gordon Gecko conservatism, that’s fine. But good god, I hope that it isn’t the default condition of man.
Also, the fact that McCain spent his post-collegiate years being tortured makes no difference to the content of Obama’s speech, and your mentioning that is nothing but non sequitur and ad hominem.
— Lifafa Das · May 28, 10:26 PM · #
I am with Jim (commenter) — this is a terrible post from someone who doesn’t typically write terrible posts, and it leaves me inclined to think that “I don’t have a visceral reaction to Barack Obama one way or the other” is self-delusion. I mean, sure, he was on a high horse — the commencement speech milieu rather promotes that. And the commencement speech exhortation to public service is neither new nor even uncommon. In telling grads that they should find important causes to serve nonselfishly Obama is, I bet, aligned with close to half of commencement addresses. Is his story the best example of such service? No, but I think that’s the point.
And Andrew gets that point. Obama isn’t commanding anyone to go live in poverty in Darfur — though, I suppose, I give those who do some due respect. He went and made an adequate living, gave some things up, and tried to do some good.
That’s simple, and common. All my adult life I’ve put in some time every week at this or that public service, and now I do it with my wife and kid: it’s a good ethic to promote. That’s not really a “political projects or organized social movement” — you go work in a soup kitchen or teach at a school or a jail, you’re not really working for the revolution, it’s just that there’s a helpful job you can do and you do it: you’re working for the greater cause of keeping your society healthy and well. That idea is exactly in tune with what Obama is talking about: teaching in schools, working for the Peace Corps. It’s lots of small beer and he seems to be OK with it.
Manzi is just plain wrong too when he seems to imply that this service ethic degrades American wealth and productivity. To the contrary: that great research, those mighty research universities, are funded by government and foundations. That mighty Army is all volunteer. And many of those corporations are founded by people looking for ways to do good.
I agree that it’s wrong to demonize our captains of industry or what-have-you: hey, it’s nice to go make a pile, and good for you if you can suck up the hard hours at say a management consultancy to do it. THey’re all creating wealth and lifting all the boats and rah for the invisible hand, man. But, they’re compensated for it. And I do have — and most people have — a little “extra” respect for that guy who goes and volunteers as a Big Brother or serves in the Air Force Reserve or teaches underprivileged kids on the weekends or what have you, and still more respect for the guy who goes and sets up some big after-school program and runs that for a living, or serves full time in the Navy, or goes and feeds lepers or whatever.
That’s such a basic social norm that Manzi is going beyond arguing against Obama here: he’s arguing against our common, shared idea of what it is to be a valuable, helpful member of the community. Maybe that should be broadened but I don’t think it needs to be.
— Sanjay · May 28, 10:30 PM · #
Pardon this ramble…
…given that Obama was making this speech at Wesleyan… doesn’t it make sense that he’d tailor the speech to the graduates of that institution?
Wesleyan is a not-inexpensive private institution located in Connecticut where (AFAICT) the graduates primarily go onto white-collar corporate and creative jobs where, by default, many of them will make lots of money, or be involved in ventures that will generate lots and lots of money. They’re already going to be familiar with those options.
In other words, they’re in the exact same position that Obama found himself in; therefore, I don’t see why he shouldn’t choose his personal experiences as a touchstone for relating to this particular audience. Given that he found himself in the same spot a few decades ago, I don’t find it surprising that there’d be some similarities between the sorts of service that he thinks they’d find appealing, and the sorts of service that he himself focused on.
Regarding the military point, check out the famous alumni page ( http://www.wesleyan.edu/about/alumni.html ); I don’t see any prominent military professionals. I rather doubt that military service is going to appeal to most Wesleyan grads (In fact, how many of private non-mil college grads consider military service, anyway?)
So while it would certainly be more daring for Obama to challenge these kids to military service, it would be both a) very unrelatable to their experience, thereby undermining the rest of his message and b) inconsistent given his stated opposition to the current primary venture being undertaken by the military.
Or should Obama offer the audacity of mixed messages?
— jdbo · May 28, 10:31 PM · #
These are great comments. The original post is poor. I’ll make in my own way a point others here have made.
Manzi writes: “Figuring out how to synthesize these competing interests, and explain to new graduates how each of them can contribute in different ways, would have been the act of a statesman. Unfortunately, Obama’s guidance pretty much boils down to: Greenpeace good; Goldman, Sachs bad; U.S. Army not worth mentioning.”
But that’s because it’s obvious to everyone that the money you get from Goldman, Sachs is good. You don’t have to tell people that. That’s why the “Greed is good” speech is so funny! He’s saying things that lots of people have been trained to feel bad about, but deep down really want. Gekko is saying: it’s not the dark side to work for Goldman, Sachs.
I do appreciate Manzi’s honesty, since he saying what I assume Republicans really believe, and this is why, as a Christian, I don’t support the Republican party.
— sal mineo · May 28, 10:40 PM · #
I’d like to add to what has already been said here by touching on this Obama – McCain comparison. McCain spent those years as a POW because he was flying bombing missions into North Vietnam. He flew no less than 22 bombing sorties before being shot down, and on the 23rd his target was Hanoi, a Vietnamese city full of civilians. I have no idea how many people McCain is personally responsible for killing, or how many of those were innocents, but the number is almost certainly more than enough to convince me that McCain’s years as a pilot were misspent. Say what you will about Obama’s public service, at least he didn’t spend his formative years dropping bombs on the urban centers of a country America had no business warring with in the first place.
— Clarke Ries · May 29, 01:51 AM · #
There is zero in Obama’s 442 page 1995 autobiography about him feeling the slightest urge to ever serve his country. In contrast, there is a vast amount about him wanting to serve and lead the racial group he chose to identify with.
Most of his career choices centered on racial activism. He chose to be a “community organizer” in an all black community he had no connection with; he chose to be a discrimination lawyer; he chose to be a politician on the black South Side of Chicago.
— Steve Sailer · May 29, 01:52 AM · #
<i>It’s like the rich guy telling a veteran in a wheel chair what tough time he had parking at the golf club.</i>
McCain is far richer than Obama. Most of Obama’s wealth comes from two books he wrote – hardly M&A work. (Presumably many Greenpeace workers also have a book idea floating around in the back of their heads they hope to make it big on.)
Also – “the habits, morals, trust and social cohesion that allow the market economy to function..If I devote my energies to starting and running my dry cleaning business and helping to raise my kids” = Goldman Sachs? What’s next, Bear Stearns as the paradigm of Bourgeois Virtues?
— Mike · May 29, 01:56 AM · #
I didn’t mean that to be that snarky – like many other commenters, I really enjoy your columns. You just need more rhetorical firepower to try and connect up Hedge Funds, Corporate Law and Wall Street with the bourgeois virtues of house and business (dry-cleaners, at that).
I’m in my 20s, and I won’t dig for articles to bore people more, but I think the general consensus is my generation is the most materialistic and narcissistic in quite some time. I doubt getting more of them to work private equity and corporate law is going to help that (indeed, probably make it worse), but I’d be willing to be proved wrong.
— Mike · May 29, 02:10 AM · #
The notion that Obama devoted his life to “public service” or his “country” is common but doesn’t stand up to the slightest scrutiny. He devoted most of his adult life to achieving his own astonishing ambitions and to advancing the interests of one race over other races.
Similarly, his wife got paid nice money to be part of the Diversity Racket.
Obama’s campaign is based on the premise that almost nobody has paid close attention to what he wrote in his 1995 autobiography or other facts known about his life.
— Steve Sailer · May 29, 02:25 AM · #
Being lectured on personal ethics by a Chicago pol is a pretty funny experience.
According to their tax returns, the Obamas were making a quarter of a million dollars per year before they struck it rich following Barack’s Democratic convention keynote address and his election to the U.S. Senate, and her “raise” (after he got a vote on U.S. health care financing policy) from $117,000 to $322,000 at the University of Chicago hospital running the diversity shakedown business. (He had previously been the chairman of the Illinois Senate Health committee, so her $117k was also a payoff to a politician’s wife.)
Their income had been close to 200k annually at least since 1997, which is how far back their tax returns go. Yet, they were barely saving anything (Obama had a hard time renting a car at the 2000 Democratic convention because his credit card was maxed out. And he didn’t start paying into a Simple Employee Pension until 2007, despite earnign $3 million from his books in 2005-2006). Michelle blames this on their Harvard Law School loans from the 1985-1991 period and on the general disgracefulness of a country not run by her husband. There is, however, quite a bit of evidence that Michelle is a very high maintenance social climber wife. For example, she works out with a personal trainer four days per week, which must cost, what, $15,000 a year?
— Steve Sailer · May 29, 03:12 AM · #
PJ O’Rourke had that LA Times “commencement speech” column a few weeks back in which he said that it was OK to go out and try to make $500k/yr. Thing is, most college students do. I’m 25 and the product of good schools. Ninety percent of my friends and peers are seeking salary-maximizing careers. A handful of Republican friends are getting into careers in ministry and the church. About 1/3 of my liberal friends are in programs like Teach for America or at non-profits. (Most of these people will be in law school by 28 and scrounging for big law jobs anyway.)
I doubt more young people would ditch lucrative careers for speeches like this than women who like clothes would quit their jobs to be designers after watching a season of Project Runway.
Also, I think there needs to be a little more discussion of careers that add value to the economy. Starting a company that provides jobs, creates an innovative product…this is good. A lot of big law and hedge fund gigs just seem to create fees that become necessary but drag businesses down…bad.
— Different Mike · May 29, 04:17 AM · #
Unlike some commenters, I found this to be a terribly good post, which makes several very good points, and strikes at what may be the Achilles heel of the Obama candidacy: his arrogance and feeling of superiority to the rest of the world.
Of course, John McCain is also terribly arrogant (you have to be, fundamentally, to run for President), but you get a distinct feeling that John McCain’s arrogance stems from what he has done, whereas Obama’s stems from who he is, which is distinctly anti-American, and anti-democratic (small d) more generally.
This was the same difference, by the way, between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election. And the French electorate picked up on it, after a few months of media-whipped elation. If the American voters do the same, the election result could end up quite closer than many expect.
— PEG · May 29, 09:49 AM · #
“Yet, they were barely saving anything (Obama had a hard time renting a car at the 2000 Democratic convention because his credit card was maxed out. And he didn’t start paying into a Simple Employee Pension until 2007, despite earnign $3 million from his books in 2005-2006). Michelle blames this on their Harvard Law School loans from the 1985-1991 period and on the general disgracefulness of a country not run by her husband.”
Regardless of what reasons Mrs. Obama gives, it’s not as if the Obamas are unusual in this regard—aren’t most Americans of varying incomes swarming in debt? Not that it’s something to be admired, but it isn’t unusual.
“Of course, John McCain is also terribly arrogant (you have to be, fundamentally, to run for President), but you get a distinct feeling that John McCain’s arrogance stems from what he has done, whereas Obama’s stems from who he is, which is distinctly anti-American, and anti-democratic (small d) more generally.”
I tend to think that McCain’s arrogance comes more from what was done to him, i.e. torture at the hands of the Vietcong. But you’re exactly right in your point that very few people who run for president aren’t ridiculously arrogant. It’s interesting to note that you’re not arguing from evidence that Obama is more arrogant than McCain, you’re just taking the assumptions you have about both men and excusing it (or dismissing it) in one and criticizing it in another, because you think you know the source of it. Which makes you just like most US voters, so I probably shouldn’t chastise you too much.
Can’t we have an election based on facts and policy and not on personal attacks and virtues?
— Andrew · May 29, 12:32 PM · #
I take the comments at this site seriously. I spent some time last night really searching my conscience, and considering my reactions to this speech. I stand by what I wrote, and let me try to explain it vis-à-vis some of the thoughtful critiques that have been presented.
Let me see if I can summarize the essence of the critique: “Look, the guy stood up in front of a bunch of graduating seniors at a fancy college and told them that while they’re grinding away at some meaningless law job to get the dough for the even bigger BMW, maybe it would be good idea to spend a couple hours a week working in a soup kitchen. If they follow his advice, the world will be a better place and they’ll be happier. Given human nature, it’s not a realistic danger that we’re going to end up with an excess of caregiving.” Is that about right?
I tried in the post to both recognize that he said this, and that it is true (or at least that I agree with it, and that it is commonly-accepted wisodm), saying the speech:
But I immediately went on to say:
This latter content is the core of what I found to be problematic. Let me try to explain why.
Consider two people who live on the same block. One is the guy who started and runs a dry cleaner. He is moderately successful, opens a second shop and makes some money, but is pretty far from being Bill Gates. He is married with two kids and is a pretty decent parent. He is good neighbor. The second is a lawyer for an environmental lobbying organization. He is deeply involved in writing model regulations for controlling emissions of carbon dioxide in order to reduce climate change. He is a pretty good lawyer, probably has made some contribution to improvements in technical design of regulations, but is no Al Gore. He is married with two kids and is a pretty decent parent. He is good neighbor.
Now here are three things I believe about these two people:
1. It is a clear implication of Obama’s speech that the second guy is morally superior to the first.
2. I don’t think that either one is morally superior to the other.
3. A healthy society that will, over time, meet the desires of both kinds of people will need to create ways for both kinds of people to prosper. This is an eternal tension, exacerbated in the contemporary U.S. by globalization, and Obama would have demonstrated greater statesmanship by recognizing this.
It seems to me that only the second is a value judgment, while the first and third are empirical questions. I undertand and respect people who disagree with me on the value judgment, but think that it is a dangerous charatceristic (all esle equal) for somebody who wants to be president. I also note that I indicated in my post that I if I made the second guy a naval officer, I think McCain would have pretty much the same reactions, and I consider this to be equally dangerous (all esle equal) in somebody who wants to be president.
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 01:15 PM · #
That last comment was a really thoughtful and considerate response by Jim Manzi. That it is transparently mistaken I think goes back to my original point: there’s some self-delusion going on here about Jim’s visceral response to Obama. But before addressing it I think I’d like to comment on other commenters if I may.
Steve Sailer is being, as is often his wont, creepy weird. Look: serving the urban poor is in fact by most people’s lights, service to the country. Sorry, guy. And this idea that somehow what Obama was doing was not only not service to the country, but was in fact basically stealing from white to give to blacks, is lunacy. This is not a zero sum game, Mr. Sailer. Hell, his fellow organizers appear to’ve been mostly white. I’m not saying Obama was hewing the Booker T. line, but gains for minorities ain’t losses for whites. That assumption is racist.
Sal Mineo, like Manzi, seems to be reading what he wants to read. There’s really no reason here to backhand “Republicans.” I think the ethic that Manzi’s arguing against here is universally American and Republicans mostly buy it as much as Democrats. Yep, there’s a handful of nuts on the Ayn Rand fringe. But they aren’t mainstream conservatism and in fact a good example comes from Obama’s initial Senatorial opponent in Illinois: as I recall he made himself a nice pile at, in fact, Goldman, then left to work as an inner-city parochial school: he exactly personifies the kind of self-sacrifice Obama is talking about and exceeds in degree what Obama is asking of the students (as I recall he dropped out due to some kind of scandal involving making his actress wife perform sex acts in public: a (left-leaning) colleague who apparently had seen the wife’s movies occasionally observed that this behavior, too, really consituted a commitment to the public good…..) Let’s not get too eager to slap down the political right here.
OK. Mr. Manzi’s thoughts in his reply fall short in two places.
Firstly, he’s sticking again with this idea of Obama promoting commitment to “political affairs or a social movement.” It’s not really there. Teaching in a disadvantaged school isn’t a broad movement. Hell, lobbying on behalf of the residents of this or that neighborhood who want help getting rid of asbestos or lead paint or better local policing isn’t really promoting a social movement, it’s just community involvement. It’s “hitching your wagon to something bigger” only in the sense the community is something bigger. It’s small beer. Not bringing the revolution. But probably good, healthful involvement for people — especially for young people in a world which increasingly lets them live insular lives or narcissistic ones (I saw Cloverfield last night!) — and which comes at a cost to them in potential earnings and status.
Understanding the linits on what Obamais asking shows the second problems, in Mr. Manzi’s example. Look, I have good neighbors. They threw a spontaneous baby shower for my wife. The work with the PTA. They come over and tell me if I’ve left my car’s lights on or if I’m locked out, and they all are committed to do volunteer stuff time-to-time and give money to their churches and the like. That’s left out of the description of that drycleaner. If it’s there, fine. He’s clearly interested in making his community a better place. If it’s not there — if by “good neighbor” you mean, he stays inside his fence — then, yeah, I think he’s missing something morally — and I think most Americans do.
and I don’t know that a “healthy society” actually encourages the guy who’s not interested in contributing to the community and bowls alone. I think when you say “Good Parent,” most people think, goes to some PTA meetings, volunteers at the school occasionally. “Good member of the community” — well, the bar is too low. I feel bad if I’m not trying to at least give up a day every couple weeks doing something helpful but, that’s slacked off a lot now that I have kids. Even then I like them to see me being involved, having a commitment to the community, so that spurs me a bit. And I think for most Americans, a “good member of the community” is in fact someone who contributes.
There’s also a sense of sacrifice. The lawyer devotes a week and a few grand to some nifty conference, the drycleaner gives a couple hundred bucks to the Kiwanis and Make-a-Wish and sponsors a softball team. Different backgrounds, different means, different potential earnings: I’m not morally savvy enough to exactly weigh who’s making the more noble contribution but both are willing to take a substantial hit for their communities, which is what Obama is asking.
Your lawyer is problematic in that his “community” is global. I’m uncomfortable making that moral call — I have known a lot of people who seem not to know their neighbors but are real real tied in to this or that movement, and I’m not thrilled with it, but I dunno. I agree the lawyer fits in to Obama’s model — but so does the frantic PTA mom I live next door to or the woman on the other side organizing a Girl Scout troop. You might accuse Obama in that sense of being too mushy or broad (but, geez, man, it’s a commencement speech. I skipped out on all of mine.) But your criticism of it is wholly misdirected.
— Sanjay · May 29, 02:41 PM · #
(I’d just like to add to my earlier comment that when I wrote Obama was arrogant because of “who he is,” I didn’t mean his race, I meant more generally his life trajectory and how he espects to soar above politics to the US Presidency.)
— PEG · May 29, 03:24 PM · #
I’d hate to read your review of JFK’s “Ask not what your country can do for you” inaugural speech. It’s sad how jaded people have become.
— Cris · May 29, 03:47 PM · #
I understand what Jim is saying. But there is more to economic competitiveness than sloganeering, and one could easily argue that the plans of Obama’s domestic policy team clearly have competitiveness in mind. (And what a talented University of Chicago policy team it is.)
Further, while Obama’s comments above—and some of McCain’s self-serving rhetoric (“the American president America’s been waiting for”)—may be trite, this is nothing new among American political candidates. Leaders from JFK to Reagan have wrapped their campaigns in selfless slogans, but none advocated abandoning America’s drive for comparative economic advantage.
What would Jim have Obama say? “You better work around the clock and innovate so our economy isn’t soon dwarfed by India”? Blunt and sound advice, true, but also totally outside established custom for our presidential candidates.
Perhaps I would rather our leaders sounded more like Singapore’s, too, but I’m not sure how much it matters.
— NWD · May 29, 03:49 PM · #
Steve Sailer-
Just to comment on the least contemptible of your “points”, last I checked, African-Americans are, in fact, Americans, and devoting one’s life to improving their lives enriches not just their community, but the nation as a whole.
— jeff · May 29, 03:59 PM · #
This post, while well-written and thoughtful, is obviously (and therefore tiresomely) written by someone whose job it is to find fault with Obama, notwithstanding protestations to the contrary.
Dear Lord, if you applied the same level of arms-folded antagonism to ANYTHING that either of the other two candidates had to say at this length, the only fair conclusion would be that they should both be hawking jewelry on QVC.
You’re certainly smart, Mr. Mazi, but don’t kid yourself. You have applied your skills to the service of pure partisan hackery.
— lmill · May 29, 04:03 PM · #
Obama was giving a commencement speech at Wesleyan and exhorting students to spend a little of their young adult lives giving back to their communities, on whatever level they feel appropriate to them. Yes, he kept it general—no particular mention of any specific type of organization. You could understand him to mean a political organization or a religious-based organization or the military. His own example cites that he was hired by a group of churches to help a local community impacted by steel plant closings. How is that not contributing economically, at a pretty concrete level?
— lisa · May 29, 04:07 PM · #
There is a difference between generating profits, generating wealth and generating something of value. For instance, Enron generated profits and wealth for a time, but nothing of value. On the other hand, my local library preserves wealth and generates value in the form of higher quality of life for its community. The estimated return on investment (benefits accrued to the community) for your typical public library would put a Wall Street firm to shame. It just doesn’t generate a profit. You are sadly narrow minded and short-sighted in your view of what constitutes and how to construct healthy and wealthy communities.
— Ed · May 29, 04:10 PM · #
Sanjay:
Very helpful reply, thanks.
I think it’s fair to say that I had a viserally negative reaction to this speech, but I don’t confuse this with the the totality of Barack Obama’s views and personhood.
Let me lay out a crude distinction. Put local, incremental volunteer work in bucket A, and large-scale, full-committment cause work in bucket B. I recognize the imperfections in this segmentation. First, there is a continuous spectrum from throwing a spontaneous baby shower for a neighbor to joining the Peace Corps, and it’s easy to find corner cases. Second, you can tie any action to some broader movement if you want – heck, I’m tying running a dry cleaner to the long-term success of American ideals. Nonetheless, I think this rough-and-ready disctinction is useful and obvious in common-sense terms for most cases.
I was trying to say that exhorting people to do things in bucket A is worthwhile, healthy and a natural thing in a commencement speech. I think the (great) examples you provide are in bucket A.
But, in my view, Obama went way beyond this in his speech. He strongly implied (I believe) that those who live their lives in bucket B are morally superior to those who do not. That anyone who does not live his life in bucket B should feel a constant sense of guilt because of this. I don’t think that is true, and I don’t think it’s (all esle equal) a good thing to have a president think this and put it forward.
Once again, since I think that McCain has, in essence, the same problem, I don’t think it provides a practical criterion for deciding between these two candiates.
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 04:13 PM · #
NWD:
Without venturing into “if only everybody were as smart and far-sighted as me” territory, I am, unlike most partisans, pretty unispired by the leading candidates of both parties in this election.
Imill:
In the post I pointed out that McCain has, in essence, the same problem, and that this is an issue with the whole American political leadership class (in my opinion).
Lisa:
I get it. Please see my most exhange in this comments section with Sanjay.
Ed:
I agree that profits don’t eqaul economic value and that economic value is not all that matters in life. I think that Obama was presenting a worldview, though, that inappropriately mimimized the need fo these things. Please see my exhange with Sanjay in this thread for more on that.
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 04:28 PM · #
“…the Achilles heel of the Obama candidacy: his arrogance and feeling of superiority to the rest of the world.”
It’s the idea that Obama thinks he’s moral superiorior that create this visceral reaction in the right. I’ve seen it a lot. A lot on the right really dislike lefty do-gooders and Obama is definitely that. I think lefty do-goodism vrs. righty self-interest is a primal conflict between the two ideologies. And I think Jim Manzie has a point, that the regular guy also contributes and is obviously not morally inferior. And I also think that lefty do-gooders do—in general—have moments of feeling morally superior.
But that is just human frailty. Lefty dogoodism in both the narrow and broad sense is an intregal piece of our societal dynamic, as is righty self-interest. Without lefty do-goodism—the idea that we can and shoud work to change our society for the better—we would not be who we are now. Our country would look very different. THe same without the whole entrepenurial spririt thing. We need both, even if human nature means that some people will feel morally superior. And I’m pretty sure that most succesfull capitalist feel superior as well. You think Donald Trump does’t feel morally superior?
About Obama himself, I don’t know. I think he is a smart, refelctive person capable of understanding the danger of moral smugness. He is a serious christian and the number one tenant of christianity is that we are all the children of god. Of course, you could also say that the history of the church is run on the motor of moral and spiritual superiority. But I’m betting that Obama is not so shallow as to not recognize the dangers of moral smugness. So there is a possibility that people are seeing Obama as morally smug becasue his past and message speaks to this deep ideological conflict. It’s almost like a tribal reaction in some cases.
— cw · May 29, 04:33 PM · #
Agreed that Obama implicitly disparaged work that is not explicitly focused on public or social services. In so doing, he was in sync with Wesleyan mindset – http://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/2008/05/obamas-serves-up-wesleyan-kool-aid.html
— Asp · May 29, 04:38 PM · #
cw:
Yes, yes and yes. Being able to rise above this primal conflict, see the need for both aspects and argue for this more holistic vision (as you have done here) is exactly what I meant by what a statesman would have done in this circumstance.
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 04:39 PM · #
Jim Manzi is one of the best writers in the business and this post (and his comments to his critics) just proves once again why he is so good. A couple of comments:
1) As “Different Mike” already mentioned, P.J. O’Rourke’s fake commencement speech is ten times better than Obama’s and gets to the heart of what Jim is talking about: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-orourke4-2008may04,0,6539887.story
2) There is nothing “creepy” or “comtemptible” about Steve Sailer’s comments. Please respond to the substance of his arguments and stop calling him names!
As to the substance, Sanjay says “And this idea that somehow what Obama was doing was not only not service to the country, but was in fact basically stealing from white to give to blacks, is lunacy.” Do you know anything about community organizing? It involves getting the government to dole out money to community groups who are supposedly involved in helping the poor or sick or downtrodden. Most (although not all) of that government money will come from wealthy white communities. I agree economic growth is not a zero-sum gain — show me a single policy that a South-side community organizer has advocated that will promote economic growth and I’ll show you a crystal skull that has the power to control matter. “jeff” also labors under the assumption that taking money from one group of people and giving it to another is an “undisputed” good thing (for the record, I would guess that such economic transfers can sometimes help, but there are always consequences that must be considered when evaluating such transfers).
Finally, neither Sanjay or jeff mention Michelle’s job, which involved enforcing and enhancing affirmative action policies at a private hospital. Most affirmative action policies have the practical effect of taking business/jobs from white folk and giving those jobs to black folk, which is what Steve originally claimed.
3) Ed doesn’t understand why high finance creates real wealth and opportunity for millions. I suggest some introductory economic courses. When Enron wasn’t cheating (admittedly a undisputed “BAD” action), they were helping businesses get cheap power, so those businesses could be run more efficiently. Again, if you aren’t cheating, by its very nature, market activity creates wealth.
— Jeff Singer · May 29, 04:55 PM · #
JManzi
I also wish Obama would be better at rising above this particular primal conflict. This part of his campaign message has little apeal to me. I think the whole, “ask not what this county can do for you….” schtick is in a lot of ways, BS. THe whole point of us gettting together and having acountry is that having a country does something for us.
I think Obama is trying to brige conflicts like this, though, and I’d bet a lot that he understands the value of your hypothetical dry cleaner and the entrapanurial spirit. You’d have to be mentally deficient not to.
And like you say, McCain is just as bad on this voluteerism front. To me he’s worse, because he wants you to volunteer to go kill and be killed (I’m simplifying a little here), instead of voluntering to teach poor third graders. I really dislike the whole fetishization of dying for your country. It makes sense when you are actually defending your country from invasion, but not in games of geo-political chess (I recognize the line between the two types of war can sometimes be blurry).
So you have to pick your poison and I think Obama has more potential. Although who can predict what McCain would do if elected and no longer required to pander to the far right?
— cw · May 29, 05:07 PM · #
I think his point was that following your passion, becoming part of the greater good is fulfilling in many ways. He chose a public service path and it lead to a fulfilling job, great marriage, wonderful kids and he’s loaded to boot. I think that is a great message to send to kids.
— Colleen · May 29, 05:39 PM · #
I’m leary of your $14,000 figure for average salary. Note the Census document shows a big jump between the 18-24 bracket and the 25-34 bracket, which leads me to suspect an anomaly. And he went to work in Chicago after 2 years, including a job at a PIRG. As a substitute, I checked the GS salary schedule—assume Obama had gone to work for Reagan’s federal government in 1985 as a GS-7 (likely entry level for someone with a good background). Starting salary was $17,824 (http://www.opm.gov/oca/pre1994/1985_GS.pdf). So by that measure he was working for 2/3 his potential salary. Not Mother Theresa, but not a negligible difference.
— Bill Harshaw · May 29, 05:39 PM · #
Sorry to tell you this, but devoting all your energies exclusively to the success of yourself and your genetic offspring is by its very definition selfish. Not to say that a commercial enterprise can’t add value to society rather than simply exploiting it for fun and profit, but in order to do so, the enterprise has to sacrifice the immediate and unqualified amassing of personal wealth at all costs for the greater good of society as a whole. I wonder, for instance, if you’ve been working to incorporate non-toxic processes into your dry-cleaning business? If so, you are very much part of the solution that BHO is espousing…i.e. seeing yourself as part of a larger universe where a little greater effort on your part can make minimize the price that future generations will have to pay for your pursuit of short term gains for yourself and your children. I would wager if you are raising your children in a typical American community, you are often called upon to volunteer time and money to coach little league, sponsor a park clean-up, do SOMETHING that is not about your own immediate gain. This is all the speech is referring to – the avoidance of an exclusively money-oriented view of the world. Maybe you’re so sensitive about Barack Obama’s tone because you’re privately insecure about how much more you wish you could do to contribute to your own community. Just saying… I work for an enormous media conglomerate and proudly make a very good living but I certainly didn’t feel the sting of judgment in BHO’s words.
— Vid Silva · May 29, 05:39 PM · #
I think that Jim’s clarifications go a long way to addressing many of the objections that people raised. As I indicated earlier, I had a pretty viscerally negative reaction to that speech as well, but it seems to me that Jim was mistaken in saying that Obama’s problem was that he was disparaging people who do things that “allow the market economy to function”. It’s really the disregard for the virtues of ordinary life – the life spent running a dry cleaner, as Jim suggests, or keeping house (whether one’s own or someone else’s), or raising children, or cooking, or otherwise being an all-around decent person living life from day to day without “hitch[ing] your wagon to something larger than yourself” in any dramatic way – that’s bothersome. Kids graduating from Wesleyan don’t need to be told to do great things, whether in “service” or business, and so implying that it’s only a life in which you help to write, as opposed to merely figuring in, “the next great chapter in America’s story” is the sort of thing that irritates the heck out of me.
— John · May 29, 05:51 PM · #
Bill:
I saw this same jump. This was the best formal data I could find. You r data is a clever way to cross-check. As I indicated in the post, Obama almost certainly could have gotten a higher salary than either of these given his alma mater.
Vid:
Intention does not always determine result. Hence Adam Smtih’s idea of the “invisible hand”.
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 06:29 PM · #
But again, what Mr. Manzi (and John) are reading, isn’t there: Obama is indeed praising small vounteerism as well as the big speech. You see that again with exhortations to become teachers or volunteer for the Peace Corps (just ad hoc little projects, there, after all). There’s
I mean, contributing to the United Way is your slavish devotion to a big cause? It’s even more strong in
That last is exactly what I and lots of other full-time parents with other jobs do — that’s the bottom of the continuum, Mr. Manzi. (Maybe I beat that a little because my full-time gig nowadays is also as an underpaid public servant — in my day I was a somewhat successful independent businesspunk, though, and I volunteered then too). OK, just go volunteer on the weekends. Work a nice job that supports you and put in a little time you could be using to enjoy your wealth, trying to support your community instead. And, damn right he (and society) should push that idea! Do you disagree, really?
Yes, I’ll give you he goes ahead and say, hey, and I hope some of you just go right ahead and do this stuff full time and bring on the revolution:
and to that extent you’re on — although even there I think he’ll happily toss out a benedicte to say wildlife museum docents and boy scout leaders and the like as sort of meeting that description. So I’ve called your criticism “wholly misdirected” because, well, it is: the text does not say, what you say it does. Now whether or not there is such a thing as what cw calls lefty dogoodism, and whether or not Obama embodies it, is a different question: and again, I think you’re taking a visceral Obama reaction predicated on that question and using it to read text in a way it doesn’t read — because the support for “small beer” volunteerism is absolutely there.
On the other hand, the “we need both” idea that cw pushes and Mr. Mazi “yes. yes. yes“es, misses the point. We need entrepreneurism. But we probably don’t need to promote it or eulogize it. That’s because — and this is the wonder of that invisible hand — I already provide beaucoup accolades to entrepreneurism every day. Every time I open my wallet, with the products of most of my waking hours. Hell, most of the time my wife seems to do it on my behalf, even. The “money culture” Obama talks about is self-sustaining at least. That half of commencement speakers who are handing out hairshirts instead are at best hoping to right the equilibrium somewhat in the direction cw and Manzi suggest. Obama hardly thinks that half the students aren’t going to out out and try to make a pile regardless of what he says.
Now the Kennedy hagiography, that irritates me.
I also think cw fires even wider of the mark when he goes to McCain with
I mean, I hear this kind of idea a lot, and it’s beyond stupid. Nobody dies for Iraq. Nobody in the Army is real eager to die for his/her country, and not many of them think that dying in Iraq is urgent defense of the country the way it would be in an invasion. And, guess what, it’s not real real hard at all to find soldiers who are as hooah as all get out and who nonetheless think the Iraq war is thoroughly misconceived. What they’re risking dying for, is the belief that you get to rule yourself, and can command force to work your will, and that that force will obey you rather than impose its own morals/self-interest. And it’s for that principle, which many think a pretty worth-dying-for one, that Private Schmedlap will let you dump him into “geo-political chess.” Not for the game itself, and nothing in his sacrifice conveys approval (or disapproval) for that game. This is almost too banal for a comment except you see stuff like cw’s which forgets it. McCain isn’t urging you to go kill: he’s urging you to be willing to do what you have to to support the larger community, and its national vision, and that’s his greater cause. Your “simplification” robs it of everything.
— Sanjay · May 29, 08:39 PM · #
This post bums me out! All the other stuff of Manzi that I’ve seen is very logical – more than anybody I’ve seen. But this one seems… no way around it… damaged by emotion! I guess he’s not a Vulcan after all.
— johnw · May 29, 08:44 PM · #
Sanjay:
Obama is indeed praising small vounteerism as well as the big speech. You see that again with exhortations to become teachers or volunteer for the Peace Corps (just ad hoc little projects, there, after all)
I agree.
Yes, I’ll give you he goes ahead and say, hey, and I hope some of you just go right ahead and do this stuff full time and bring on the revolution
I agree.
What they’re risking dying for, is the belief that you get to rule yourself, and can command force to work your will, and that that force will obey you rather than impose its own morals/self-interest.
I agree, and FWIW, that was really an amazingly well-written paragraph (IMHO).
— Jim Manzi · May 29, 09:03 PM · #
Sanjay,
The killing is integral to the larger McCain version of this vision (as I understood you to be describing it) both conceptually and morally, even though it is not its purpose. To keep the fact of that largely indiscriminate killing (and of the maiming and killing of our troops) front and center, rather than focusing on the noble stated purpose alone, is why some measure of simplification is necessary. It’s part of the moral calculus required to clearly assess a foreign policy vision.
— jason · May 29, 09:21 PM · #
This is the most impressive comments thread I’ve ever seen in my life and I’m unworthy.
OK.
Following the Jim/Sanjay exchange, I’d like to know what in the speech made Jim think that Bucket B was being exalted at the expense of Bucket A – even if it’s just a turn of phrase or connotation. That is, I would agree that this would be a bad thing, but I did not get it from the speech myself. I thought Sanjay’s point about the dry cleaner who stays behind his fence as falling short of the mark was spot on, and I don’t think Obama was denigrating the hypothetical dry cleaner who does the bucket A things that Sanjay’s neighbor does.
I do like the fact that Jim keeps bringing it back to his visceral reaction – I think that’s an excellent place to start. Something tells you “there’s something wrong with this picture” and you go from there. The same thing happened to me with Hillary’s apology to the Kennedys. It instantly offended me, and I had to then methodically and non-instantly figure out what it was. Always a worthy inquiry.
I have the feeling it’s possible that Jim is used to maybe OTHER people making the point that he attributed to Obama, and Obama’s speech reminded him of those other people, and it irritated the already sore spot. This is what my brother does to me. He’s got me pegged as this big party line liberal, and in one infamous exchange he started lecturing me on the evils of affirmative action [over the phone], assuming I was an advocate of a.a., and asked me if I’d heard of Shelby Steele, and I said “I am right now staring at the cover of ‘Content of My Character’, which I own, in hardcover, and agree with.” This altered his trajectory slightly. But nothing that I’d said in the conversation was in support of a.a., yet I had to be lectured as though I had, simply because I’m a lefty do-gooder.
In sum: Jim, whatever you do in this life, try not to be like my brother. I’m not saying you were here – maybe you could be specific and point to what Obama said that had shades of bucket A denigration. But it’s one explanation for your reaction, and it would be very understandable, but not fair. It’s certainly easy to slip into, and it’s something we all need to watch out for, particularly in this dreary partisan palmolive we’re all soaking in.
— Phoebe · May 29, 10:18 PM · #
Sanjay I agree with the first part of your comment about the entrepenurial spirit not needed boosterism. But I do kind of think that too much preaching to one side of the choir helps stoke the tribal feelings.
About McCain, I don’t really know what you mean when you say: “What they’re risking dying for, is the belief that you get to rule yourself, and can command force to work your will, and that that force will obey you rather than impose its own morals/self-interest.” Is the first “you” refering to the nation? to the soldier?
I can’t really respond but maybe I can reiterate. One of the main kind of service McCain honers is to risk your life as a soldier for this country. All kinds of patriotic BS is ginned up around this idea. That it is noble to fight and die for your country. I believe most people join the military for economic reasons, but they can use this patriotic ideal to rationalize the choice. And then there are people who trule want to serve their country in this way. What I object to is the idea that there is any nobility in dying for your country, or that your sacrifice was ethically asked for by those who sent you, when the war you are sent to fight in is about resouces or political expediency or historical ambition.
— cw · May 29, 10:28 PM · #
@Mr. Manzi: Given the source I am grateful for the praise.
@cw: The “you,” is you.
@Jason: The argument that one has to distort the truth to make it possible for the proles to correctly understand what’s going on, is always … interesting. But in this case it’s just plain ruin.
Killing people is not what most of the army mostly does most of the time, even in Iraq. Keeping it “front and center” distorts for people what it is the army — the most important of their civil institutions, remembering that government needs a monopoly on violence — does. Such distortion is now so common as to be false common knowledge: witness the discussion with cw, or witness here where I ended up trying to explain this at length to someone stupid enough to believe that in fact service in the Army is a marker of approval for the war, that those who disapproved of administration policy ought not to serve, and (dear God) that soldiers ought to be able to opt out of missions of which they personally disapprove. This is a (stupid) idea so common as to have even ensnared the (not stupid) Freddie, who argued it here with me later.
And understand why it is important that everybody know that the Army is, as I said above, essentially a tool for self-rule, not a killing machine: its because armies suck. The American government is freakishly long-lived: it is an outlier. But the Pakistan/Turkey situation where the army always threatens to negate civilian rule is the norm over the long sweep of history: might is always dangerously close to making right. We impose baroque constructions onto the military to reinforce its subservience to the civilians: you see it a thousand times a day as battle-hardened, experienced master sergeants with years of service have to salute and “sir” green second lieutenants just out of college, because the MSG works for Army, and the 2LT is commissioned by the Senate.
But it is absolutely crucial that the military mirror to the greatest extent possible the ideological diversity of the country, and if it doesn’t, we are fucked. Period. I know everyone likes to make it sound like it’ll be apocalyptic if we don’t follow their particular policy proposals — reduce inequality or stay in Iraq or leave Iraq or whatever. But if the military becomes solidly associated with one politics, then we’re done: this one really is the apocalypse. So we can have no patience with, say, those conservatives who would ideologically purify the military, or those liberals who would mislabel military service as a killing game or the support of individual wars (or even war in general).
— Sanjay · May 29, 10:54 PM · #
Phoebe:
That’s a fair question, and I did try to make sure that I wasn’t reading into his post.
He says:
Note that he doesn’t say “from your community’s” but “from America’s”
And:
Again, your family, school, town and so on are not what he’s calling out. It’s “something bigger”, and “the next great chapter in the American story”.
And then he lists goals that are inherently huge projects: a green revolution, stopping global warming, stopping the slaughter in Darfur, reversing deep-rooted poverty and so on. While individual projects can be part of this, these can only be accomplished, and only make sense, as national and even international efforts over decades.
The emotional power that he is tapping here is, in my view, not the quiet moral beauty of a single person helping a frail, elderly woman who lives down the street get her shopping done, but the excitement of losing yourself in service to a crusade that encompasses millions and changes the world.
— Jim Manzi · May 30, 12:14 AM · #
Sanjay,
Are you are saying that McCain’s (or maybe the right’s) call to service in the military and the fetishization of patriotic death shouldn’t be criticized becasue we need armies?
I agree that the government needs a monopoly on violence and that calls for some kind of professional military. (Though that doesn’t mean we need a military that we use as a tool for foriegn policy. Look at Canada for instace. They are doing fine with theri stay at home military.) And I agree serving in an army that ensures we have rule of law is a useful act of service. But that’s not I was talking about. I was talking about was the contrast between the kind of sacrifices for your country Obama asked for and what the republicans traditionally value along the fetishization of patriotic death use to entice and rationalize these kinds of sacrifices. And what I feel is that there is nothing noble about dying for your country if that death is going to be used by politicians for ignoble aims.
— cw · May 30, 01:14 AM · #
I accidentally posted that comment before i could finish fixing this one sentnce. Here it is fixed:
“But that’s not I was talking about. I was talking about was the contrast between the kind of sacrifices for your country Obama asked for and those the republican’s traditionally value, along with the fetishization of patriotic death use to entice and rationalize these kinds of sacrifices.”
— cw · May 30, 01:24 AM · #
I still haven’t got it yet. I’m going to try one more time. Sanjay says:
“McCain isn’t urging you to go kill: he’s urging you to be willing to do what you have to to support the larger community, and its national vision, and that’s his greater cause. Your “simplification” robs it of everything.”
I’m saying that it depends what the “national vision” is. And McCain’s nation vision is geo-political chess. He’s supported the war in Iraq for all kinds of reasons for a long time now. The war in Iraq is nothing but geopolitical chess played by a handfull of powerful men. Yes we need some level of generic military. I didn’t argue that at all. We don’t need the kind of military we have now to do the kinds of things you talked about.
— cw · May 30, 01:41 AM · #
Hey Jim
Some great thoughts… in effort to not clutter up the comments section any more, I responded with some thoughts on my blog instead. Keep up the good reflection!
best,
peter
— Peter Boumgarden · May 30, 04:35 AM · #
“About Obama himself, I don’t know. I think he is a smart, refelctive person capable of understanding the danger of moral smugness. He is a serious christian and the number one tenant of christianity is that we are all the children of god.”
Maybe. I actually think that Obama is a fundamentally good person, with good intentions and good character, and that he would make a good president. In fact, I believe this of both candidates in this election, which is the first time for a very long time (probably 1988)…
But if there is one thing we can take from Obama’s history and body of work is precisely the amount of self-reflection in his life. A little self reflection is necessary and proper. Too much can lead to solipsism and self-infatuation, and it shows all too often with Obama. Obama has got a lot of good qualities; the problem is that Obama knows it, and I think he knows it too well.
To me, the main problem in Obama’s speech was not the actual content, although it’s worrisome, but the belief behind the content that young Americans should lead their lives according to the same rules as Barack Obama, because Barack Obama is Barack Obama. When Obama says “I did X, so you should do X too,” what’s most grating isn’t so much what X is as the implication that because Obama did it, everyone else should.
By the way, I’d like to point out how incredible TAS is, where you can have such an insightful post (no matter whether you agree with it or not), followed by such a great conversation. It’s made for tremendously good reading, even though I don’t have anything really original to contribute.
— PEG · May 30, 08:54 AM · #
Jim is praising with faint damns. The second guy is far, far superior to the first. The second is a productive citizen. The first is a scheming parasite.
The American ruling oligarchy has exactly the same problem that the Athenians had in, say, 400 BC. Most of its young, energetic, brilliant people are putting most of their time into scheming for power, rather than into producing useful goods and services.
“Change” is a euphemism for “power.” Progressives instantly translate the word “power” into “good,” because they think it is good and natural for them to have as much power as possible. So does everyone, kids.
And the fact that, in many cases, when they do gain power, their deeds are indeed good (at least by my own personal ethical standards), does not mitigate the general creepiness of the phenomenon. Click on my URL for more details.
— Mencius · May 30, 05:46 PM · #