Reconsidered

Another three contests, another three wins for Obama. With polls showing support for Obama across multiple demographics Obama declared boldly, “This is the new American majority… This is what change looks like from the bottom up.”

I can feel the excitement. I can feel the fire provided by a faith in the transformative power of hope, beginning to thaw the hearts and minds of a weary nation.

In my naivete, I am even beginning to think that Obama’s rhetoric - that this hope he raises - has a power that transcends those people employing it. Many have cited Obama as being long on wind and short on substance; but perhaps what America is watching in Obama is a man who realizes that it is only hope and the conviction that one may improve the world through his action that permits valuable substance to emerge.

The nomination is not yet Obama’s and cannot be taken for granted; we who believe in the need of change and the power of hope must remain active in our efforts on behalf of Obama and our shared conviction. That said, if and when we pull this off, and if and when Obama is elected to the White House, the mettle of our rhetoric and the strength of our faith in Hope will be put to the test. Obama warned us, in his Super Tuesday speech, that we face tough times ahead of us. The fate of our vision - whether Hope will be allowed to continue to exist in politics or be tossed back on the trash heap and replaced by cutthroat, ‘pragmatic’ politics - depends on the extent to which we consider these words.

In today’s unsettling and insightful column, David Brooks writes, “…when you think about it, the Democratic policy unity is a mirage. If the Democrats actually win the White House, the tensions would resurface with a vengeance…. The first big rift would involve Iraq. Both Senators… have seductively hinted that they would withdraw almost all U.S. troops within 12 to 16 months. But if either of them actually did that, he or she would instantly make Iraq the consuming partisan fight of their presidency…. All dreams of changing the tone in Washington would be gone. All of Obama’s unity hopes would evaporate. And if the situation did deteriorate after a quick withdrawal, as the National Intelligence Estimate warns, the bloodshed would be on the new president’s head.”

Per usual, Brooks deals in hyperbole, employing worst-case scenarios and sensational language. But the fundamental truth of the reality he is naming is inescapable: Obama is building a coalition across ideological lines that he intends to ride into a presidency that will face, at minimum, three gargantuan issues that sit upon major fault lines in any bi-partisan coalition: Iraq, the economy, and the likely need to nominate .up to three Supreme Court Justices.

The question then becomes: can hope and cooperation across ideological lines survive major disagreement on significant issues? We have the benefit, at least, of being able to see our future challenges from a great distance, and hence of beginning to prepare to face them in advance. Obama want us to believe that Americans, be they Black, White, Republican, Democrat, or otherwise, can face our struggles and challenges together; that we may work to conquer them together. If he is to be proven right, a great deal of work need be done and America’s manner of existing politically, needs drastic change.

First, we must win the nomination; second, we must win the general election. That said, it wouldn’t hurt to consider these issues along the way.

Picking my way through a crowd of protesters I made my way to the Obama campaign headquarters here in Chicago. It was a Saturday, barely noon or one; a quiet voice in my head was asking me if this was really the manner in which I wanted to spend my Saturday.

I walked past a French camera crew and down a corridor, emerging into an expansive room filled with people and ringing phones. “My name is… and I’m calling on behalf of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.”

Yes. This was where I wanted to be.

It struck me almost immediately that there are few places on earth where such a crowd might exist; the young, the old, and the in-between sat in chairs or cross-legged against a wall, all making calls on behalf of Senator Obama. There were African Americans, Caucasians, Latinos, and Asians. There were hippies and yuppies, students and business people. In short, if there had not been Obama posters and articles taped to the walls, I doubt an onlooker could have surmised why these people had come together.

This was where I wanted to be. The campaign headquarters had run out of phones and so my friends and I, and many other people, made calls using our own cellphones.
In the wake of a victory in South Carolina, and with Senator Obama having recently been compared favorably with Robert and John F. Kennedy, people are excited about Obama. There is something of a phenomena occurring- and pundits and columnists have rushed to explain it, to weigh its qualities, and to declare its viability.

Michael Oreskes offers this: “Call it a split between whether politics should be a pursuit of consensus or an effort to enact a party’s fundamental ideas, its core orthodoxy. Each party’s nominating fight boiled down last week to a choice between two candidates: one who argues for a politics that reaches across party lines and looks to identify common ground within the broader electorate; and one who states his or her first principle as representing the traditional party base by drawing firm ideological lines.”

The difficulty I see in responding to such arguments is that they contain enough truth to convince while simultaneously enacting a rhetorical sleight of hand that seems to obscure important elements of reality. Oreske wants to portray Romney and Clinton as “fighting for principles that separate their side from the other.”

Where does that leave Obama and McCain? “Principle” is a word that sells well in America; to be separated from principle in the public mind- by any distance or for any reason- is dangerous. Oreske’s articles seems to imply that Obama and McCain value consensus in and of itself, almost as some sort of idol, and thus are unprincipled in their methods of pursuing consensus.

To my mind, the article fails to distinguish between party activity and ideological orthodoxy. McCain’s record in particular seems to toe the traditional ideological line of conservative Republicans; where McCain has been branded a maverick is when he chose to uphold those principle rather than to follow the dictates of his party. Likewise, the idea that the Clinton’s are staunch defenders of the principles of the Democratic Party is absurd and counter-factual. Pardon the vitriol, but the chief motivating principle in evidence during the Clinton’s political careers has been self-interest.

To my mind, Senator Obama seems to begin with principle, and it seems to remember that party principles are secondary to the greater principle that dictates the need of respect for all persons. Obama’s campaign invites people to consider a common task prior to dividing according to lines and principles that are often far more fluid than pundits and politicians want to admit. Obama’s campaign asks, “What can we accomplish together, before our ideological allegiances force us apart? What can a Democrat and a Republican do together for the benefit of humanity, without being forced to sacrifice his or her integrity?”

When push comes to shove, Obama is a liberal (for as much or as little as that term conveys) and will not, I believe, betray the values that define, inspire, and motivate him for the sake of consensus or expediency.

So what then, is this phenomena we are experiencing? Why are Americans (as wells as much of Europe) excited by senator’s Obama’s campaign?

Oreske, waxing college freshman poetic, writes “These are the winds of disenchantment that have been lifting Senators Obama and McCain with their promise of a different kind of politics.”

Ah, the misleading sophistry of statements that are mostly true. Yes, Americans are tired of dubious wars, a flagging economy, and the policies of George W. Bush. Yes, there is an element of disenchantment. A strong element. Senator Obama’s campaign is not merely aimed at collecting the disgruntled and constructing a hodge-podge consortium of the disaffected for Obama to ride into power.

“Yes you can.” You might have heard that line. Yes, it is sappy, even trite. But when senator Obama says it, people believe him. And as the senator leads people in repeating the slogan, they believe that it is true then, as well.

Hope is easily dismissed, easily deemed to be fluffy and insubstantial. But, hope is a principle too. Senator Obama is committed to bringing people to the table in order to face the problems that stand before all of us- that he hopes to guide the discussion according to the values on which he has built his person and career should be obvious, he is, after all, running for president.

Fundamentally, the Obama campaign hopes- that is to say it believes in spite of the evidence to the contrary- that intelligent, well-meaning people can work together.

After eight years of “The Decider Guy” wherein the executive privilege expanded and was used to ignore and disenfranchise dissident voices, people are refusing to be silenced. The principle of respect which Obama intones, which leads to the empowerment of citizens who may then be heard and contribute to the change they want to see, is indeed bolstered by this climate. Partisan politics usurp the voices of individuals and transmit them into the stultifying din that our political scene has become: the simultaneous and deaf shouting of Republican and the Democratic voices.

Yet Obama’s message is constructive. Be the change you want to see.

In the closing words of chapter one Richard Foster quotes Tolstoy: “Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.”

I have my doubts about this; a brief survey of our landscape divulges scores of people actively trying to change themselves. Consider the popularity of health clubs, secondary learning institutions, the success of the Self-Help genre, and the ghastly institution of ‘the New-Years-Resolution.’ Attempts at self-improvement are ubiquitous.

What then, is Tolstoy pressing on?

If one considers how commonly the consumption of a Big Mac is accompanied by diet coke, I think one begins to understand; the bulk of our attempts at self-change come from an ignorance of the deeper realities of our being and thus, are superficial. This is not to say that the attempts are disingenuous or half-hearted, but rather that they betray a fundamental lack of understanding of the human person. Simplistically: the majority of human attempts at change are aimed at behavior- at acts; at the epidermis of the human being.

Foster is not surprised. The soul is beyond the scope of empirical science, and as such “people will tolerate a brief dabbling in the ‘inward journey’, but then it is time to get on with real business in the real world.” The deeper aspects of who and how we are are not areas of serious inquiry, and thus when we make adjustments we often make adjustments to the manifestations of who we are and not the who we are.

David Brooks writes, in an OP-ED piece in today’s paper, “The world is changing. The old ways will not do! …The awareness that we are not self-made individualists, free to be you and me, but emerge as parts of networks, webs and communities; that awareness is back again today.”

Invoking the nobility and optimism of the Kennedys’ rhetoric circa the early 1960’s is indeed a welcome divergence from the divisiveness of the Rove-era/W. Bush oratory. However, an unreflective “ask what you can do for your country” is perhaps no better than the status quo. A faddish quasi-communitarianism will quickly recede with little impact.

Meaningful change comes from individuals within a society uncovering the elements of themselves that systematically entrap them in a particular mode of being. What is called for is the “inner transformation” of lives, one person at a time.

I think Foster wrote Celebration of Discipline because he realized how many snares line the path to becoming the person one wants, and is called, to be. It is an excellent guide.

A person who aspires to transform the world, to make it a better place, faces many obstacles: a cultural idiom that makes self-awareness difficult, opposition from systems that seek to keep you in line with society, and the inescapable reality of human imperfection.

Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote, “The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”

With each speech Barack Obama gives- and with each pundit’s response- it becomes increasingly obvious that the currency of transformative idealism is rising in America. As individuals, it is our responsibility to ensure that this change is deeply rooted in a disciplined effort that molds our hearts and minds such that when the movement fades from the collective consciousness, its insights, goals and values remain a part of who we are.

Richard Foster’s book provides a very useful companion to this effort.

Click here to see the article.

You’ll note that this article was posted by Fox News. If there is anyone out there who thinks the Clinton’s win-at-all-cost tactics aren’t delighting Republicans, this should clear that up. They’ll run stories of Democratic candidates making allegations against one another and looking like idiots until the cows come home.

My call to the priesthood and to military chaplaincy places me amongst diverse groups of people; they are African-American, Caucasian, and Pacific Islander. They are poor, middle class, and privileged; they are Muslim, Christian, and Jewish. Each person fits one and more than one of these categories, they identify with different groups, have different values, and think and reason on different grounds.

I am many things as well, not that ‘I’ matter uniquely; we are all many things. The question is: How do these components of our being interact? Do the various aspects exist in proportion? Are we fundamentally more one thing than another? Or do our parts emerge situationally? Moreover, am I asking about one’s personal identity or anthropology?

As a “Christian” I entertain a certain obsession with identity. I think it is because I believe that who I am and who we are will reveal in part why we are, and how we are to be. Granted, we are given certain identities, terms like “lapsed Catholic” and “nominally Christian” speak to this reality; at a certain point it is incumbent upon us to choose a descriptor, if only in order to understand ourselves.

Terms like ‘Christian,’ ‘Democrat,’ and ‘Liberal’- when chosen by a self- serve as guides to those who choose them. Such terms offer structures of value, a moral vision, and an ideal.

Separating identity from anthropology is a fool’s errand, like husking corn with a sledgehammer or separating the fibers of a cotton plant. Philosophical anthropology is the genre within which individuals choose between aimless wandering and the intentional endeavor to understand and construct themselves.

It has been said that we are created Imago Dei. Given that the God whose image we reflect is a creator-god, it follows that we must create. It is our divine task.

I write today reflecting upon that divine task. My favorite introverted illuminati recently wrote:

“If Obama is losing self-identified liberals to Hillary Clinton, he’s most certainly doing something wrong. If he needs people like Matt Yglesias to explain that his foreign policy views are significantly different from Clinton’s, he’s doing something wrong. If he needs Josh Marshall to “de-bamboozle” the Clinton attack about his “present” votes on abortion, he’s screwing up big time. Barack Obama, Democrat from the South Side, community organizer, civil rights lawyer, should not need any emmissaries to American liberalism. “

Who we are- one’s sense of herself- provides her greatest insight into who and what she must be. People often forget or disregard this. More to the point, many of us have forgotten this for such a long time that we have become unclear who, finally, we are.

Obama seems to have lost sight of who he is; choosing instead to ‘run a campaign.’ Is it any wonder then, that those who are touched by the vision with which he began, who have dreamed alongside him, now articulate his vision more clearly than he?

It would be absurd- to pretend that a campaign can be run or a life lived without a certain worldly wisdom, a street-sense hardened by the blows of experience. Hence, the many identities of a human being living in our world. As we live however, one must ask what is to keep these identities from complete dissemblance? How is a human being to form some coherent self-understanding?

The answer to this question illuminates the need for an overriding, grounding ‘uber-identity’ that prevents a person from becoming lost amidst the adaptive components of their being. The Clinton’s have never been principled people- at least not publicly. They appear willing to abandon any cause or value in favor of their own political survival. My greatest fear relating to the possibility of another Clinton administration has to do with the example they will set and its impact on the Democratic Party and its principles.

My Church has taken to erecting dikes as half-measures that will delay the coming of an inevitable conflict. We have grown accustomed to a seemingly infinite process of reacting and compromising to the effect of having lost our uber-identity in a sea of pragmatic adjustments.

An important aspect of Obama’s rhetoric is his invocation of the need of reconciliation and occasional compromise; I will leave analysis of this up to more capable minds. I mention this for the purpose of indicating that my emphasis of the importance of an uber-identity does not preclude (or even discourage) compromise.

What I hope to communicate is that compromise requires an understanding of one’s self and what is constitutive of one’s values. Combatants who have lost sight of why they are fighting are condemned to fight eternally, each blow only carrying them further from an understanding of why they fight and what they fight for.

At the end of this election cycle a winner will be declared; my fear is that that winner will no longer remember why he/she ran. Political consumerism is the great foible of our democratic system; politicians create themselves as profoundly adaptable ‘goods.’

Goods have no identity.

Returning to the subject of military chaplaincy:

I have tried as a chaplain, to minister to all soldiers. The hardest lesson I have had to learn is that I cannot minister to all people in terms that are acceptable to them- even as I care for them.

My identity and my commitments do not permit me to accept certain terms. I don’t rush to make such pronouncements; I look for every possible avenue of approach- for all the ways in which I might minister to them. Some times however the best I can do is pray for them and pass them on in the hope that they find someone that may contribute to their flourishing.

The point is that one needs an identity in order guide their activity toward the production and fulfillment of the values that constitute their deepest meaning. The Episcopal Church, Barrack Obama, and each individual maintain the integrity of their existence by understanding what they need to be doing in order to serve the values at their center.

This can hardly be a democratic process.