On Obamian Ecstacies

Will Wilkinson on the spectacle of Obama's election:

I’m glad Obama won. I am perhaps the world’s most lachrymose man, and I cried seeing Jesse Jackson cry. I have always thought that the symbolic or cultural value of an Obama victory would be enormous. The dramatic reaction last night confirmed that. I understand why so many people are elated, and part of me is elated, too. I find it hard to see how you could not be. There is no denying that an election can be culturally transformative. It means something profound that a black man was elected to the most visible, high-status position our society offers. The mere fact that Obama won truly does make our society a better place.

That said, every four years, I find myself deeply disturbed by the fact that the office of chief executive of the national public goods administration agency is in fact, according to most people’s sense of things, the highest peak, the top of the heap. And the quadrennial reflex of vesting in a single powerful man so much hope for the future seems to me a truly depressing failure to internalize the spirit of American democracy. Last night’s celebratory catharsis was a long time coming. We needed it. But, frankly, I hope never to see again streets thronging with people chanting the victorious leader’s name.

I tend to agree with the point here. Personality-driven elections draw on deeper layers of our brains that developed during our tribal past and so they draw a lot of power from short circuiting our rationality. There is something creepy about Obama's election being so driven by his own image, an image often portrayed in a propagandist vein that we haven't seen for a good while in America.

I think that this sort of tribal thinking is important to us, but its proper place is a tribal setting. That means that it should be directed towards people that our major forces in one's actual life, like family (genetic or not), friends, and community leaders. But national government is supposed to be a necessary evil in America. Even those who think that the welfare state is a necessary for all to obtain positive liberty should still see the government as a dangerous instrument. We should be clear-eyed and skeptical of our leaders when they occupy power, as we learned after the first six years of Bush's presidency.

Americans liked Bush at first because of his personality. Looking at these pictures, I can feel somewhat positively toward Bush the man, he's just so adorable, and I have to think about what he did in power to feel negatively again.

I talked with my dad about Obama's potential role as president. He liked that Obama is a figure that the nation can unite around, one that restores an idea of America that could invigorate civic-mindedness in its citizens. This attitude reminds me of the time of FDR's reign, when one could find framed photos of FDR in restaurants, barbershops, and homes across America. There is something attractive about such a deep affection for a symbol of one's country.

But we should also remember what have been the results of propoganda, personality cults, and public displays of ecstatic emotion in the past. Perhaps we should also remember that if we wish to identify our nation with ourselves, we must identify with its evil as well as its good. Perhaps that is actually healthy, maybe identifying America's torture and brutality with ourselves would cause us to actually change these things.

So I guess my point is that scenes like this:



are definitely a mixed-bag for democracy.