[The Montana Professor 20.1, Fall 2009 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]
Ron Perrin
Political Science & Philosophy (Emeritus)
UM-Missoula
The election of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth President of the United States has been the occasion for a bout of national wonder. Quite understandably this has focused on the matter of Obama's race. As the late Senator Ted Kennedy remarked (no doubt with rhetorical effect in mind), "Any of the first sixteen presidents could have owned Obama."
I need to begin with a personal note. With this seemingly incredible event I have been moved as I have rarely been moved; moved to recall a week during the spring of 1965 when I traveled with three fellow Northwestern University students to Selma, Alabama; traveled, as we quickly learned, with scores of others who had watched the TV news on a Sunday night and seen the images of blacks being brutally beaten back from the Edmund Pettus Bridge as they sought to march on Montgomery to protest the systematic campaign mounted by Sheriff Jim Clark and the white establishment of Perry County, Alabama, to prevent the registration of black voters; moved then to join in Selma with many of those who had been attacked on that Sunday afternoon in what would become a six-day long blockaded vigil in the Carver Housing Project. (I need to remember one of us, James Reed, a young Unitarian seminarian from Boston who was beaten to death that first night when he strayed away from the project.) It was a blockade that was maintained by rings of city, county, and state law enforcement personnel who encircled the project; a vigil punctuated by the singing of freedom songs, and with addresses by a host of activists and supporters including Drs. King and Abernathy, Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and Walter Reuther (President of the United Auto Workers Union).
At the end of the main street leading into the project stood Jim Clark, his two pearl handled revolvers on his hips, next to a cardboard sign stating simply, "Never." The "never" was a reference to when those people would march to their courthouse and register without the threat of violence and the myriad harassments Clark had devised.
On Monday evening March 15 President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and called for the passage of Civil Rights legislation that would make universal suffrage a reality. He ended that address with the refrain of the most popular hymn of the Civil Rights movement: "We shall overcome." The following morning Jim Clark stepped aside and the blockade was lifted. At that time the idea that millions of black Americans would, in a mere four decades, cash in their right to vote by helping to elect one of their own to the presidency was unimaginable. Yet, as the Biblical prophets might have said, "It has come to pass." There is for many of us, a legitimate element of euphoria in this wonder-filled moment. It needs to be tempered by the recollection that the right to vote was earned, in all too many instances, at the cost of the lives of young civil rights workers like James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner who gave their lives in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and Jimmy Lee Jackson whose murder prompted an earlier series of demonstrations in Selma.
So, the relevance of Selma at this time? John Lewis, the congressman from Alabama, who suffered a fractured skull on that Sunday afternoon, is reported to have said to Barack Obama on election night, "The road to the White House started at the Edmund Pettus Bridge."
How was it that the road was traversed in a mere four decades? How do we explain Obama? I think it helps to shift our perspective from the context of race relations in America to the larger frame of America's culture, particularly its political culture. There we are invited to focus, not on the election of Obama as the first black president, but on his election as the first black president. With this change of emphasis I mean to underscore the fact that his election is testimony to the power of a unique constellation of values in our national life. The first is the esteem Americans hold for that which is new, indeed, for newness itself. The second is an attraction that often borders on fascination for that which is different. The third, which in many ways is the sum of the first two, is the sense of American exceptionalism. Let me try to explain each in turn.
The planners of Obama's inauguration chose their theme, "A New Birth of Freedom," wisely. To join the new and the free is to recognize that everything that is new entails a beginning and that, conversely, in one way or another we must be free of the past in order to start anew. This is not merely a matter of simple logic; in the story of America it was a lived reality. The story of a people who found themselves in a "new world" and celebrated that circumstance in the names of their various locales: New England, New Hampshire, New York, New Bedford, New London, and so on. Later, Washington and Jefferson would underscore the new worldliness by advising their fellow citizens to shun the ways of the old world and to preserve their liberty by avoiding entanglements in its affairs.
Since then the assumption that the new is better than the old and is invariably progressive has insinuated itself into every corner of our national life. In the arts it fuels the critics' excitement over what they find genuinely new in a play, a novel, or a work of fine art. In the applied sciences it favors those who are able to promise, as a consequence of their activities, some new technological achievement. (One trivial but telling example: the utilitarian defense of the space program with the observation that it gave us the microwave oven.) In commerce the privileging of the new over the old provides the sustaining motif of most advertising, from the marketing of the newly improved detergent or toothpaste to the widely anticipated introduction of this year's cars and trucks.
Never mind the fact that every beginning is also an ending. Label the process as one of "creative destruction" and move on.
The celebration of the new and the commensurate degrading of the old is, of course, accelerated and intensified on those occasions when the conventions and practices of the past have been discredited, when they have quite literally lost their credibility. This is what occurred during the last years of the Bush administration, when the Administration found itself confronting what some political theorists have come to call a legitimation crisis. On these occasions the public's rejection of the discredited policies will likely include their most visible protagonists. It is a nice variation on the old theme of killing the messenger when his message proves unacceptable. Thus, in the presidential election of 2008 Obama's cause was aided by his campaign's ability to portray John McCain as an associate of George Bush.
I am suggesting, then, that Obama's candidacy was well served by an innate receptivity within the body politic to that which is new and novel, a receptivity that is heightened in a moment when there is a corresponding desire to relegate the present to the past as soon as seems possible. But, while this may well have been a necessary factor in his success, it is hardly sufficient. It does little to answer the question of "why Obama?" Here is where difference matters.
Just as the planners of Obama's inauguration tapped into the public's disposition to welcome that which is new and novel, so too those who adopted the campaign's mantra of "change" could rely upon that deeply rooted fascination Americans harbor towards that which is not merely new, but different. One instance of this was, and is, what Alexis de Tocqueville described as our inveterate "restlessness."
An American will build a house in which to pass his old age and sell it before the roof is on; he will plant a garden and rent it just as the trees are coming into bearing; he will clear a field and leave others to reap the harvest, he will take up a profession and leave it, settle in one place and soon go off elsewhere with his changing desires.... Then if at the end of a year crammed with work he has a little spare leisure, his restless curiosity goes with him traveling up and down the vast territories of the United States. Thus he will travel five hundred miles in a few days as a distraction from his happiness. (Democracy in America, Vol. 2, Chapter 13)
Bruce Springsteen put it much more succinctly in one of his earliest hits. We are "Born to Run."
If we want tangible evidence of how much Americans value that which is different we need look no further than the national palate. Open the yellow pages of any mid-sized American city; turn to "restaurants" and measure the marvelous diversity of the American appetite: Chinese, Italian, German, French, Vietnamese, Japanese, Ethiopian, Indian, and on and on. There is in all of this the subtle but unmistakable judgment that uniformity is boring, that a good part of life, for some maybe even the best part of life, comes with seeking out and trying that which is different.
I don't mean to suggest that there are none who find that which is different threatening, particularly when difference is embodied in those of another race, religion, or culture. But if there was any one thing that testified to their minority status within the electorate of 2008 it was the increasing shrillness of their voices. As the campaign progressed from winter, through the spring and summer into fall more and more white Americans were able to deal comfortably with the fact that, in one very evident and pronounced way, Barack Obama was not one of them. By the time of the inauguration an astounding 79% of the electorate was optimistic about what his presidency would bring. What I do mean to suggest, then, is that within their set of values there was a place where they could find room for one who was remarkably different in his race, his ethnicity, and indeed, the very manner of his style. I think it was all of this, and more, that Colin Powell was referring to when he described Obama as "a transformative figure" in American politics.
Let me correct one other possible misunderstanding about the points I am trying to make. The difference I mean to highlight should not be confused with that which is foreign, alien, or wholly other. On the contrary, part of its appeal to us stems from its promise to extend the compass of our experience, and in this way, become a part of our selves. If we can enjoy the cuisine of the Chinese, the Italian and the French, this is because our palates have the capacity to be enlivened by more than the taste of mother's meatloaf and apple pie, delicious as they may be. While Obama may have been different from most of us he could not and would not remain a stranger. This was most evident when he invited us to share his audacity and his hope, when he effectively punctuated his campaign speeches with the call, "Yes we can," and when, in the end, a majority of us responded.
At various times and in various ways the American esteem for the new and the different seems to morph into a distinctive element of the American character and a prominent feature of our political culture. Here it contributes to both the theory and the practice of the central and controversial theme of American exceptionalism. At worst this takes shape in an arrogant display of American military and economic power, as if our newness and difference vis-à-vis the old world and the other worlds were at one and the same time a privilege to be enjoyed and a warrant against the plagues and perils that beset others as they seek to promote and defend their interests. It is a recurrent posture, perhaps first most notable in the nineteenth century doctrine of Manifest Destiny, and most recently in the glowering and even threatening countenance with which the recent administration confronted the rest of the world. Yet, for all of that the idea of American exceptionalism remains a credible way of understanding what is genuinely unique within the purview of our past and the promise of our future.
The first expression of American exceptionalism takes us back to what might be called the pre-natal stage of the American nation. There, in the seventeenth century, John Winthrop counseled his fellow Puritans to adopt the model of Christian charity towards each other and towards their neighbors. In this way he promised that, "We shall be as a city upon a hill, with the eyes of all people upon us." Here, I think, is the first condition that distinguishes the better from the abusive expressions of American exceptionalism. With Winthrop, to be exceptional was not simply to recognize the special circumstances of one's situation, but to see them as the source of an obligation and then to take responsibility for them. Here the appropriate response is not pride or hubris but duty.
A century after Winthrop's founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony Hector St. Jean de Crevecoeur would underscore the connection I want to make between the new, the different, and the exceptional. In his Letters from an American Farmer he would draw a stark contrast between the old world and the new by personalizing it as a contrast between serf and the free-holder in land. "The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labor, he has passed to a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence—this is an American."
A more enduring feature of American exceptionalism comes with the character of the Republic itself. Prior to its founding political philosophers from Aristotle to Montesquieu had agreed that the republican form of government was appropriate only for a population of limited scale, both in the character of its people and the expanse of its territory. This judgment did not escape James Madison and the federalist authors of the constitution. Instead they knew it was a problem the anti-federalists were sure to raise and therefore one they must address. They did so by insisting that they were enacting a new science of politics whereby, as Alexander Hamilton put it in Federalist #9, "The efficacy of various principles is now well understood which were either not known at all, or imperfectly understood, by the ancients." Chief among these principles was the separation of political power, first horizontally among the three branches of political power in the national government and then vertically between the state and national governments. This measure would presumably prevent the concentration of power in the hands of one individual, region, or faction. Just as important was the idea of a representative government which would ensure that the electorate would be directly invested in the affairs of state. In this way the founders felt they could confidently take the unprecedented step of devising a republican form of government that would incorporate a population with distinct economies, religious sects, and several languages, one that unified several previously separate colonies, and finally, one that might eventually extend over a vast and unsettled territory.
If the founders needed confirmation that theirs was indeed an unprecedented development in the history of bodies politic it is unfortunate they did not live to read de Tocqueville's Democracy in America. However else one might want to characterize that work, it is certainly an extended commentary on the exceptional character of this political system and its culture. This much he made clear with his preface and its claim that "a new political science is needed for a world itself quite new." But not even de Tocqueville could anticipate that the "general equality of conditions" he found so original and distinctive about this society would eventually enable the election of a black man to its presidency. This is, to date, perhaps the most dramatic expression of American exceptionalism.
So much, then, for the matter of the "here" of Obama's election, of how one so different from those who preceded him in this office could be elected. There remains the matter of the "now," of why this moment was so propitious.
The most obvious answer that suggests itself is the crisis of legitimation I cited earlier, the discrediting of the previous administration's policies, domestic as well as foreign. But I don't find this explanation adequate. Many others promised a credible alternative to those policies and one, Hillary Clinton, certainly embodied the new and the different, although perhaps to a lesser degree than Obama. The more telling answer to "why Obama now?" is somehow related to the more positive feature of American exceptionalism I noted in my comments on John Winthrop, namely the imperative for Americans to recognize the dutiful aspect of their special circumstances or, to be more specific, the responsibilities that are inherent in American citizenship. This did not occur to me when I first undertook to explain Obama. It only began to dawn on me when I thought about his inaugural address and its call for us to, "Set aside childish things... reaffirm our enduring spirit. Choose our better history... carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation...that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness."
This could be a highly significant passage that I want to return to later. But first more needs to be said about the state of our society at what I believe is a critical moment in our history and about what his election means in that context. To do this I find it helpful to draw upon an important and relatively recent concept in political theory, the concept or idea of "the Machiavellian Moment."/1/ The term has two referents. The first is that stage of the Italian Renaissance when Machiavelli—the Machiavelli of The Discourses, not the Machiavelli of The Prince—and other thinkers of late fifteenth and early sixteenth century Florence became preoccupied with the mortality of the state, particularly the republican state. That is to say they understood that the state is a human creation, not a product of nature or a divine creator and, as such, is a wholly secular affair with a beginning in time, a history, and an end. The second referent is to that moment when a series of events and developments threaten its existence. When the threat is foreign and external the proper response is raising an army of citizen soldiers and Machiavelli devotes chapter after chapter to this eventuality. But even more attention is given to those internal and domestic factors that endanger the republic, those that contribute to the loss of civic virtue when the citizens of the Republic effectively disavow their allegiance to the common good, to the Republic itself, and turn their attention to the pursuit of private, rather than public, ends. This, in the judgment of Machiavelli, Guicciardini, Gianotti, and other Florentine civic humanists is nothing less than the corruption of the republic and the cause of its impending death.
There is an ambivalent note to Machiavelli's analysis here. For the most part he suggests that the process of corruption is irreversible, but at one point he hints at a possible salvation, one that I want to develop later.
But just what does it mean to speak of the "death" of the republics? Certainly in most instances this does not mean the physical disappearance or end of the place or region that bears the republic's name. Athens, Rome, and Florence still exist. We can visit them, walk in their squares, and gaze at their monuments. But, for example, this is not the Athens of Solon and Pericles. That Athens ceased to exist centuries ago during the Peloponnesian War and not simply because Athens was defeated by Sparta. The most telling feature of Athens' death was captured in the Melian dialogues recorded by the historian Thucydides. There the Athenians demanded tribute from the island city of Melos, a city that had adopted a position of neutrality during the war. In defending their neutrality in the war and their desire to maintain friendly relations with all parties the Melians appealed to the Athenians' sense of justice, in this case respect for the Melians' long history as a free and independent people. This they argued was an honorable tradition which surely the Athenians would recognize because, as we learn when we read Pericles' funeral oration, these were among the founding principles of the Athenian Republic itself. But the Athenian delegation turned a deaf ear to that appeal and opted instead to adopt a posture of might makes right. They reminded the Melians that they were the inferior power and that in such circumstances their only prudent course was submission. In the end, when the Melians refused to submit, the Athenians, as Thucydides describes it, "Slew all the men of military age, made slaves of the women and children, and inhabited the place as a colony...."
The episode dramatizes what, in the end, is the sustaining role of its first principles in the life of any republic. When the Athenians were unable to recognize that which was the best of themselves in the pleas of the Melians they were, in effect, acknowledging that during the course of the war they had surrendered their true identity.
I think it makes sense to say that we are in the midst of our own Machiavellian moment, one that is most evident in our economy and our politics.
The most obvious evidence of corruption in the economy is, of course, the criminal and quasi-criminal activities of Bernard Madoff and those keepers of the nation's wealth who have violated the trust of their investors. But this is not the corrosive corruption that concerned Machiavelli. That comes with those who live out the model of human behavior that underscores the policies and practices of unregulated free market capitalism. It is a model developed by Milton Friedman and subsequently adopted as a basic premise by the rational-choice theorists of the Chicago school of economics. Briefly stated it is one that enshrines self-interest by making it the fulcrum of rational economic behavior. Only the individual, the theory claims, is capable of recognizing and acting upon what is in his or her best interests. Therefore, any claims to the contrary are both irrational and immoral. To be sure, individuals engage in a variety of co-operative endeavors, but always to empower and promote their own particular interests. What an impoverished sense of the self! If we need to give the morality it engenders a name, I would suggest "utilitarian individualism," a morality that values the things of the world—its institutions, its forms of human association, and ultimately the very land and its people—only as they can serve one's own pleasure and sense of well-being.
The conflict between this model of human behavior and that required of citizens in a republican state is clear. There is no possibility here for the development of a civic morality, with its call to suspend self-interest in the furtherance of transcendent goods and principles, goods such as a clean environment, or principles such as the equality of rights.
There might be some small comfort to be gained if we could confine the consequences of such a morality to the marketplace where it would only govern the production and allocation of goods and services. But the corruption of our economic life finds its complement in the quality of our political life and public dialogue. There the attempts to reach a common understanding of the tasks before us and to take collective responsibility for resolving them are repeatedly frustrated by the acrimonious and adversarial politics that fills the halls of our legislative bodies, the vitriolic dialogue that haunts the nation's airways, and the mean-spirited exchanges that dot so many of our daily newspapers editorial pages.
A somewhat less obvious—but from the perspective of a republican ethos—a more subtle corruption of our society has been the widespread withdrawal of so many from the communal and associated activities that make up our civil society. It is a development that is well documented in works such as Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone and Richard Neuhaus's The Naked Public Square.
Ironically, however, it is here where we might begin to answer the question of why Obama now. It is at least arguable that one of the factors contributing to the withdrawal of so many from civic life was not just a response to the legitimation crisis I have cited but reflected a general disaffection with what Obama has described as "politics as usual." His presidential campaign, which eventually came to resemble a social movement more than a traditional political campaign, gained its vitality from his ability to tap into that well of disaffection, enlisting the active services of thousands of previously apolitical Americans and garnering the contributions of millions more. What this suggests is that he exemplifies the type of leader that Machiavelli, in the midst of his dire reflections on the death of republics, gave only passing attention to, the figure that I like to think of as the "renovator." This is the figure who, when the future of the republic is imperiled, is able to summon the people back to their origins and enliven the first principles of their founding.
Once before in our history such a figure emerged. I refer of course to Abraham Lincoln. Think for a moment of the Gettysburg Address with its opening reference to a nation brought forth "four score and seven years ago." With that Lincoln took his audience back to the origin of the nation in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. There Lincoln found the first principles of our founding, chief among them the notion of an equality of human rights.
Is it a wild exaggeration to cast Obama in the mold of a Lincoln? Perhaps. But consider the passage from his inaugural address I cited earlier. It was a call for the reaffirmation of the very same principle Lincoln had invoked, the "noble idea that all are equal and all are free."
Finally, much has been made of the daunting challenges Obama faces, challenges that, if anything, have intensified since he took office. I don't believe he can effectively meet and overcome them unless he is able to sustain and extend that rekindling of our civic life his campaign accomplished. If he does so he will indeed have become a renovating figure in the story of America./2/
Notes
[The Montana Professor 20.1, Fall 2009 <http://mtprof.msun.edu>]