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<\/a><\/p>\nLet me just preface this by saying sometimes I complain that Montana is lacking in intellectual energy, specifically in philosophy, politics, and religious studies. While it has in no way caught up with England or even London alone, Missoula<\/span> has very happily surprised me of late with some amazing talks both by resident thinkers and by visitors. Thanks, Missoula<\/span>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Last Thursday I pushed for an early meditation so as to make it to a wonderful <\/span>free<\/span> philosophy lecture by David Sherman<\/span>, current chair of the UM Philosophy Department. I didn\u2019t muster the energy to blog about it then, and I won\u2019t attempt a full recap here, but the gist of it was that our moral sensibilities have slowly but surely been eroded with the rise of capitalism and with it the evils of a vacuous utilitarian individualism (to borrow Ron Perrin\u2019s<\/span> characterization from today\u2019s talk).<\/p>\n
The talk focused on economics, paying particular attention to post WWII America and the rise and fall of the middle class (note that Barack Obama talked about this in his press conference tonight \u2013 over the past decade, give or take, even when the economy was soaring upward, the average worker DID NOT SEE ANY increase in his\/her purchasing power<\/span>, while the upper class saw wealth increase hand over fist). I can\u2019t recall too many of the specifics without my notes in front of me (sorry) but I do remember that he gave a regressive analysis (fancy philosophical words) of our current problem, tracing it back through deregulation<\/span> under Bush, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall<\/span> Act<\/a> under Clinton, and on backward, showing blow after blow dealt<\/span> to organized labor in the name of greater wealth-creation. All the while our society (not to mention those of countless countries around the world) have paid the price.<\/p>\n
Dr. Sherman concluded (in part) that while he hasn\u2019t totally bought in to Obama \u2013 noting that Obama seems foremost interested in simply fixing the system that got us here in the first place, <\/span>he sees promise in our current President and wants to focus us on what we can do as individuals to rebuild the fabric of our society (I think to borrow a phrase from Borgmann<\/span>) against the tide of rampant capitalism.<\/p>\n
~<\/div>\nNow, on to the Obama talk.<\/span><\/span> UM Professor Emeritus from Political Science and Philosophy Ron Perrin<\/span> discussed \u201cExplaining Obama\u201d today for the Philosophy Forum series.<\/p>\n
Perrin<\/span> began his talk with an evocative story of his journey south with fellow students of Northwestern University in <\/span>the spring of 1965<\/a>.<\/span> They were en route to Salem, Alabama, where just days before hundreds had attempted to march on Montgomery<\/a> demanding equal voting rights for Blacks. Police brutally fought<\/span> back the peaceful<\/span> protesters<\/span>, killing several. It was a charged moment in our nations history, only diffused (in part) when President Lyndon Johnson delivered his Voting Rights Act<\/a> to congress, demanding that the equality that so many died for in the Civil War be brought to its proper legal fruition, now 100 years later.<\/p>\n
And then we fast-forward just 40 or so more years, to today, and we have our first black President. \u201cWhy here?\u201d Asks Perrin<\/span>, and \u201cWhy now?\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cWhy here\u201d portion is answered by looking to the founding of our nation in the principles of \u201cnew and free\u201d \u2013 free from the past, free from the \u201cold world\u201d which had carried with it so many persecutions and entrenched hierarchies. To some extent the fetishization<\/span> of the new (my terms, but no doubt recognizable to Dr. Perrin<\/span>) has had its problems; and yet it has also been most forceful in the removal of a past that has been discredited. In the case of the recent Bush administration, it has not only lost credit, it has lost all legitimation<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n
For Obama and his team this meant painting McCain as a continuation of Bush, a continuation of the failure that brought us to where we are today.<\/p>\n
Alexis de<\/span> Tocqueville<\/a> summed up American restlessness in his famous \u201cDemocracy in America\u201d in a passage that Perrin<\/span> quoted in full \u2013 the gist<\/span> of which was that \u201cthe American will build his retirement home only to sell it before the roof is on it, plant a great garden only to lease it before it bears fruit, travel madly over his vacation time only to escape his unhappiness, and so on.\u201d<\/span> He then quoted, as a more recent description of the American Ethos, Bruce Springsteen\u2019s song title, \u201cBorn to Run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s<\/span> special appeal, Perrin<\/span> suggested, was that Americans run from tradition in order to somehow expand our conception of ourselves (enjoying Thai and French cuisine beside grandma\u2019s haggis and shepard\u2019s<\/span> pie). Likewise we see in Obama a chance to extend our idea of who we are<\/span> as a people.<\/p>\n
American Exceptionalism<\/span>, at its worst is militaristic and economic bullying. But it is at the same time originating in <\/span>John Winthrop\u2019s<\/a> 17th<\/span> century clarion call to his citizens in the Massachusetts<\/span> Bay Colony<\/span> to love their neighbors and the natives, to live as a \u201cCity on a Hill\u201d \u2013 an example of goodness that would draw out the best in all who observed them.<\/p>\n
Why Now? is a more complicated question. It could not be summed up to Bush\u2019s failure or Hillary\u2019s lack of appeal. Instead, Perrin<\/span> pointed to Obama\u2019s<\/span> particular call upon Americans to recognize our duties and responsibilities as Americans<\/span>. Perrin<\/span> gave a history of what is known as the <\/span>Machiavellian Moment<\/a>, a period in many great nations\u2019 histories when crises arose with the power to tear the society apart.<\/span> Our own Machiavellian Moment is now, not due to Bush or Madoff<\/span><\/a>, though they are symptoms of it. Instead it is a result of a Milton Freedman<\/a> styled utilitarian individualism. We\u2019ve lost our focus on the common goods (clean air, city parks, etc) and moral principles (quality of life, extension of wealth, etc.) and so many of us have withdrawn from communal activities.<\/p>\n
Obama has the position of renovator,<\/span> of summoning people back<\/span> to their own basic morals, just as Lincoln did in his Gettysburg address, calling attention to our Declaration of Independence. Will he succeed? It will take a lot.<\/span> It will require that he summons us also to be patient with what is, to pass up our habit of indignation and finger-pointing, and to seek out our best selves in honest effort to help as well as we can.<\/p>\n
~<\/div>\nThe Q and A following Dr. Perrin\u2019s<\/span> talk was just as informative and thought-provoking as his talk. I can only sketch it briefly<\/span>, but some key quotes include former Congressman Pat Williams<\/a> saying that this was \u201cthe first time in his life that he\u2019s been more confident in the President than in the people\u201d<\/span> of our country \u2013 going on to describe what he called 30 years of a culture of timidity in America.<\/p>\n