Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Wednesday, July 30, 2008 3:34:24 PM
A peculiar hallmark of our narcissistic age is the veneration of authenticity, and it's been well documented that the most expeditious route to achieving it is by crafting a confessional narrative that dovetails perfectly with our culture's preoccupation with weakness and its twin, victimhood.
We submit as evidence Jack Schafer's piece in Slate which purports to demonstrate why nothing sticks to Obama, his glaring policy reversals notwithstanding. Beneath Schafer's description of the mechanisms Obama employs to connect with voters is his deft aptitude to manipulate emotions, to draw people into his world where a consensual kind of suffering and hardship can find catharsis.
Indeed, the political edifice Obama is constructing depends upon his ability to tap into the emotional hard wiring of the common man, to trigger a global identification for every American which inevitably wends its way to the unavoidable conclusion that Obama can solve your problems. Its Messianic overtones can't be mistaken, nor, frankly can its smarmy capacity to perpetually reinvent himself to momentarily satisfy the political litmus test du jour.
But the reason it works, which Schafer's meandering piece never seems to stumble upon, is that Obama has cleverly tapped a cultural mother-lode by correctly recognizing the electorate's slow shift to the center. Implicit in that migration is a nascent embrace of a more intrusive role for government in our lives, which means higher taxes and more stifling regulation.
It's the inevitable product of a culture whose dim understanding of economics--as well as history--fallaciously concludes that market capitalism is evil because it fails to provide success for all, that the challenges of our generation are at once unprecedented and only surmountable with government assistance, and that Obama is the national father figure, always ready to assist.
It's a thoroughly corrosive polity, one that blunts motivation and ignorantly maligns competition while providing a false and cold comfort that marginalizes our capacity to marshal resources as yet unknown.
But that's why Obama can successfully negotiate the political mine fields, repositioning himself as needed to favorably impress his audience, while avoiding the harsh realities which will inevitably confront him if he's elected. We have only ourselves to blame, because this cultural apparatus was erected with our implicit approval. Dismantling it is not only a Herculean job, but one freighted with powerful cultural disincentives, which effectively guarantees that it continue to find a receptive home in our wayward world.