The New Republic

Since the precipitous drop in the cost of a barrel of oil, Medvedev's day job is selling fruit.

It could be a coincidence, of course. But if not what might all this mean? If Medvedev shows up at the Inauguration without Putin, Obama will be sending a signal to all the world leaders that the age of Bush is truly over.

Especially if the guy sitting next Medvedev on January 20th is Mikheil Saakashvili.

Even Osama bin Laden might throw in the towel and give himself up.

george walton

- iambiguous

January 17, 2009 at 3:58pm

From comments section in Huffpo's awesome set of pictures of of Obama and his kids bordering the Presidential train in Philly this morning, my relatives were cheering along the tracks like lunatics:

"How about this concept. That our President Elect and our Vice President Elect have continuously worked to reach out and touch Americans across our great country.

I remember our outgoing president's staff selecting audience members and making participants sign loyalty oaths before admittance to highly secured events.

This incoming administration is setting new levels of access by the public to our elected officials, especially on this historic week.

This is eight years late and 200 years overdue !"

I know, a bit read meatish but satisfying.  

Friends in Europe started going to inauguration parties last night.  Its beyond huge.

- Wandreycer1

January 17, 2009 at 4:01pm

With all the polemics, histrionics and hyperbole I marble through and through my posts here, I recognize how I project to most at TNR as a Herblock cartoon on steroids....as a lifetime subscription to The Onion.

But every once and a while I put this cyberspace persona up on the shelf and react in a less calculating and cynical manner. I get caught up in a spontaneous, existential moment and react more optimistically and hopefully.

I live in Baltimore and Barack Obama was here today to give a speech. I watched and listened to it on TV. It was [once again] both deeply moving....and deeply rhetorical.

To see all those folks react to him at War Memorial Plaza, you couldn't help but be amazed [once again] at the overwhelming joy and hope he inspires in and then elicits elicits from people. Only the second coming of Christ could top it.  

And no one has put on him a greater burden to produce [once in office] than Obama himself. He pointed out he would make mistakes...that there would be defeats as well as victories along the way. But the reaction of people to his words downtown this afternoon was so electrifying, a failure to win far more victories and than to acknowledge defeats may produce a tsunami wave of dashed hopes and dreams this country might not recover from for a long, long time.

Personally, when I look at the world, both home and abroad, the problems are so huge, and they coming at Obama from so many different directions, I simply cannot imagine how the hell he is going to pull  this off. I figure he will be recognized as a great president even if all he accomplishes is to stop things from getting a lot worse.

george walton

- iambiguous

January 17, 2009 at 5:31pm

george:  "It was [once again] both deeply moving....and deeply rhetorical."

The two things are inextricably intertwined, and that fact has been somewhat worrying to those who consider themselves philosophers from Plato on down.  But rhetoric has its place and rhetoric that triggered no emotion would be a failed rhetoric.

I agree with you about inflated charges of hope and joy being projected onto a political leader.  But it seems to me that it's not only a matter of testing Obama down the line to see does he deliver or not.  It's also a matter of testing what people's criteria are.

If our hope is that Obama can bring us back to the economy of the pre-meltdown world, in which credit flowed freely, SUV's were a great symbol of American freedom, and we could all live in houses the size of villages in Indonesia, then (a) Obama can't do it and (b) it's not a legitimate hope as that's the kind of thing that got us in trouble in the first place.

If the joy is the in the possibility that intelligence, balance, and a sense of connectedness might return to the White House and the organs of government over the next four years at least, then that's a joy I can joyfully share, and Obama seems to have at least as good a chance as anyone of pulling that off.

- ironyroad

January 17, 2009 at 5:54pm

My daughter reports from Lebanon that total strangers will approach someone they believe to be American on the street with a thumbs up and a tentative "Obama?"   If she returns a thumbs up, she gets and enthusiastic, "yes, Obama."  I have no idea what a Lebanese expects him to change anytime soon, but clearly the world is ready for some kind of shift.

On the other hand, she reports that in Moldova, they consider Obama demonstrably unfit for office because of his color.  Go figure.

- sdemuth

January 17, 2009 at 7:56pm

irony,

The problem with a word like "rhetoric" is that it gets entangled in so many different [and at times conflicting] referrential, circumstantial, historical, epistemological and linguistic snares, it is virtually meaningless to suggest that we can know what rhetoric MEANS.  

Plato was a philosophical realist. His political philosophy reflects the sort of formal logic that one needs in order to deduce a polity as he does in The Republic. Back then rhetoric was seen is a tool [along with logic and dialectics] one used in order to communicate more efffectivly and more precisely.  But as a philosophical realist, Plato always distinguished the complex and convoluted empirical world we interact in from day to day and an essential meaning that is deduced by the philosopher-king.....meaning that is grasped deductively outside that infamouse cave with its distorted and deceving shadows on the wall. Most importantly [in my view] formal logic is almost attached one way or the other to God. Even in brilliantly intertwining empiricism and rationalism,  Kant still needed God in the end.

Or a God. The transcendental in other words.

Today however the word rhetoric, while still understood [and defined in any dictionary] in the manner in Plato used it in Ancient Greece, is usually connoted instead with what we we call "political realism". But realism here denotes the opposite of philosophical realism. When you mention the word "realist" today in political circles a name that is often associated with it is Henry Kissinger. But in this respect some people will embrace it as the epicentic of pragmatism while others will emrace it as the epicenter of cynicism.

Obviously, however, with Obama not having even been sworn in yet, it is much, much too early to start speculating as to where he fits on the rhetorical continuum that encompasses both Plato the Greek and Henry Kissinger.

As for passing or failing whatever any of us come to define as "a test", no one will be more resolute in that regard than Obama himself. At this point, however, he is so out of the blue in a world that is so dangerously close to tipping over the edge that I [or anyone] would be a fool to pretend they can see what's coming. This is terriotory is so new it doesn't even have a proper name yet.  

I agree with you that most of us yearn to see "the possibility that intelligence, balance, and a sense of connectedness might return to the White House and the organs of government over the next four years at least, then that's a joy I can joyfully share, and Obama seems to have at least as good a chance as anyone of pulling that off."

Where it all starts wobbling and shaking, however, is the way in which this country is still profoundly divided substantively regarding which policies to pursue and which legislative agendas to enact. As long as there are Rush Lambaughs, Sean Hannitys, Keith Olbermanns and Michael Moores out there stirring up the "the base" it will be a miracle if Obama can put the thread through the eye of that needle.

Hell, I still half expect him to change his mind and let Hillary take the job on Tuesday. And if he isn't smoking 3 packs a day this time next year, that in and of itself will be a miracle.

george walton  

- iambiguous

January 18, 2009 at 12:36am

Obama worship is getting out of hand.

He is only one person.  He will make mistakes of judgment and of tactics.  And on some things, he will be simply wrong.  He is young for the job and, as we all know, lacks much experience.  He will be confronted with enormous issues, and advised by people who have frequently been wrong and/or corrupt and/or pigheaded.  

He can give a good speech.  But, as we all know, fine words butter no parsnips.

And he also poses a danger:  Because he essentially created his own candidacy from scratch (as opposed to being part of a larger group or movement or constituency) he is essentially non-accountable.

Yes, he is black (partly by birth and largely by choice) and it's a good thing that we are breaking down the color barrier.  But he is also a skilled politician and skilled politicians are not to be trusted, none of them.

Keep an open mind ... and be skeptical.  

- PeteBeck

January 18, 2009 at 1:15pm

I doubt that wrongness, pigheadedness, or corruption are going to increase when measured against the last eight years, PeteBeck.  Also, idealism and skepticism are not mutually exclusive.  Idealism (in the sense of believing that one can reach for more than yesterday's laziest solution) is not dewy-eyed naivety; skepticism isn't the enemy of idealism but rather it's protective maneuver that keeps idealism from treating the world as a malleable narrative with only you (or us) as the author.

Thus, for example, the Bush idealism about delivering freedom and democracy was dangerous and contaminated because it refused (possibly because it secretly knew what it didn't want to recognize) the necessary skepticism that would have said, wait a minute, if you're going out there to intervene radically in world affairs then the rest of the world gets a say in it too -- it's not just an American story.

In contrast, Rooseveltian idealism was strongly tempered with the knowledge that theoretical solutions for revitalizing the American economy and sense of resiliance and optimism had to be tested in reality -- if they worked, keep 'em going, if not, drop 'em.  But without the idealism there would have been no solutions, irrespective of how they panned out (some were a lot more productive than others).

And the accountability of the Bush presidency was to . . . what, or whom?

- ironyroad

January 18, 2009 at 2:19pm

Just can it, PeteBeck. The only thing getting out of hand is sourpusses like you who just don't get it.  To describe Obama as giving a good speech is to damn with faint praise and to make evident to the world your utter cluelessness about the man.  Obama inspires.  And after 8 years of horse dung it is a good feeling to be inspired.  You don't have to get it.  You don't have to understand it.  But please have the courtesy to keep your mouth shut so the rest of us can enjoy it.  Nobody cares what you think.

- dhuey0

January 18, 2009 at 3:15pm

to dhuey0

You are fortunate to be a true believer, for whom anyone who disagrees with your unlimited enthusiasm is a clueless sourpuss who doesn't "get it", who doesn't understand.

We've seen you before, and will see you again -- marching somewhere, right or left, devout or atheist, educated or simple, but always absolutely sure of your rectitude and the inspiration of your favored person and your cause, whatever it is.

What is not fortunate are the consequences of mindless devotion to the unproven but articulate leader.

I don't apologize for tossing a bit of rain on your parade -- better sooner than later.

- PeteBeck

January 18, 2009 at 4:15pm

What is not fortunate are the consequences of mindless devotion to the unproven but articulate leader.

Right, but I think the "mindless devotion" is and has been more in the minds of pundits and irritated Republicans than a realistic description of how Americans feel about Barack Obama.

And while it's true to say, in a general way, that Obama is "unproven but articulate," that rates somewhat better than Bush in 2000 who was unproven and inarticulate.  Futhermore, I think Obama's life and achievements testify to a certain kind of character -- thoughtful, able to meet challenges, not hidebound by ideology -- that has indeed been "proven."

So while raining on one's parade is your right, of course, your comments seem to be based more on fuzzy generalities rather than anything speciific about Obama himself.

- ironyroad

January 18, 2009 at 4:50pm

PeteBeck, you butter your parsnips? For that matter, you even eat parsnips? I also don't think there is anywhere near the Obama worship as you imagine, this has been manufactured by both the Hillary crowd and the Republicans (the whole Obamessiah horseshit). Is there some, sure but is it really so bad?

And Obama is not unproven, that is just a lie. He has proven himself as a University Professor, State Senator, US Senator, Candidate for Pres. and even as President elect. His transition has been one of the better ones for a generation, since Bush I. I supported Obama from the beginning, but I am tired of being labelled a mindless follower. When he screws up I will say it. But lets give him a chance first, shall we before being a naysayer.

- blackton

January 18, 2009 at 5:28pm

There are a lot of people, like Pete, who think what they're seeing is mindless adoration of Barack Obama.

There is a strong undercurrent of joy, relief and happiness that has almost nothing to do with the incoming administration.

It has to do with the outgoing administration, the gang of crooks, thugs, incompetents and holier-than-thous who are leaving. They're gone, off to their think-tank jobs and book-writing and secretive plotting to seize power in two, four, six or eight years. No longer screwing things up, no longer making Americans' lives worse.

Couple that with a popular, smart, good guy going into the office, and you're going to see some pretty wide smiles. Maybe even a high-five or two, or a hug every now and then.

- WoodyBombay

January 18, 2009 at 7:59pm

irony:

....idealism and skepticism are not mutually exclusive. Idealism (in the sense of believing that one can reach for more than yesterday's laziest solution) is not dewy-eyed naivety; skepticism isn't the enemy of idealism but rather it's protective maneuver that keeps idealism from treating the world as a malleable narrative with only you (or us) as the author.

George:

Philosophical idealism basically revolves around solipsism----the believe that what is real is only the manner in which any particular mind puts together all the pieces. Thus the opposite of realism in which there is believed to be a formal reality that transcends the existential day to day interactions of mere mortals. This is almost always connected to God. Why? Because only an omniscient point of view can embody or instantiate the transcendental.

Political idealism takes many different forms but almost all of them embrace the belief that human social, political and economic interactions can be grasped essentially.

And this is essentially bullshit.

And let's not forget that Bush's "idealism" was firmly rooted in evangelical Christianity. And that is bullshit cubed.

If you want to grasp FDR's rendition of idealism watch the scene in "Citizen Kane".

LELAND TO KANE:

"You talk about the people of the United States as though they belonged to you. When you find out they don't think they are, you'll lose interest. You talk about giving them their rights as though you could make a present of liberty. Remember the working man? You used to defend him quite a good deal. Well, he's turning into something called organized labor and you don't like that at all. And listen, when your precious underprivileged really get together - that's going to add up to something bigger than - than your privilege and then I don't know what you'll do - sail away to a desert island, probably, and lord it over the monkeys."

George:

It still boggles my mind just how stupifyingly ignorant most Americans about the difference between "the economy" or ''the govenment" and what Marx called "political economy".  

george walton

- iambiguous

January 18, 2009 at 10:27pm

What on earth are you rambling about, george?  You take a few phrases of mine, which I used in a reply to PeteBeck and his party-pooper lecturing, and springboard from them into a surge of confused commentary which indeed gives evidence of a solipsistic mindset if there ever was one.  I wasn't talking about philosophical idealism, I was talking about political idealism, which should be clear to even a superficial reader.  Neither does idealism demand a transcendentalist framework to manifest itself, and if you're suggesting that it does, I haven't a clue what your evidence for it could be.  A political ideal (e.g. an ethic of cooperation in international affairs) isn't just a religious concept translated for easier swallowing.

Why "Citizen Kane" should be particularly illluminating about FDR when the model for the character was the conservative newspaper baron Randolph Hearst, I've no idea.  Indeed, Welles was, broadly speaking, an FDR supporter.

That thing with the Dylan lyric you did on the other thread -- that was impressive.  The above, not so much.

- ironyroad

January 19, 2009 at 1:55am

irony,

This is largely a supposition, of course, but I suspect you don't have the sort of curiousty I have regarding the problematic gaps between "political philosophy", "the news" and "the mainstream media". This is in part why I copy and paste posts from TNR onto philosophy threads I frequent. I never use names [or even mention they are from TNR] but I do use these exchanges as leverage to yank down as many of Will Durant's "epistemologists" as I can.

My experiences [here and there] revolve around the abstruse and achingly ossified language of the "critical rationalists" I deconstruct up in the clouds there....and the manner in which political pundits at places like TNR display barely an inkling of understanding regarding the history of either political philosophy or political economy. Over there some folks stay in the clouds [that's bad], while over here folks stay largely the ground [that's good]. But the narratives I read in here seem to flow largely from day to day headlines that energize one or another narrative along the MSM political continuum .

What is the point of discussing solipsism, if it doesn't at last touch on the opinions of folks who think about these things philosophically, epistemologically, phenomenologically and existentially? Bascially, you  seem to suggest [to me] it is not really necessary to broach these symbiotic relationship between mind and matter. But this allows human transactions to be discussed without more thoroughly grappling with crucial variables like congenital traits, identity [Heidegger's dasein], enculturation [early childhoon indoctrination], the limits of language, contingency, chance and change, being and nothingness.

And I would challenge you or anyone who makes the claim that, in discussing the moral and political parameters of any moral or political issue, one can evaluate and judge this idealistically.

I am really not sure what you are suggesting above. For me, any ethical discussion of issues like abortion, gay marriage, the death penality, the role of government, raising children, euthanasia etc etc. can only be successful when scepticism is acknowledged to be smack dab in the middle of the debate.

Go ahead, pick any issue today that precipitates conflagrations between different value systems---which narrative is right or wrong? good or bad? just or unjust? fair or unfair?

I don't know. You don't know. They don't know. Why? Because without a transcendental vantage point [which most ascribe to God] no mere mortal CAN know.

And the point about Leland's brilliant reaction to Kane [one of many in this extraordinary film] is how, in just a few sentences, he makes that vital leap from a liberal point of view about "the economy" to Karl Marx's [among others] far, far more sophisticated grasp of capitalism as a POLITICAL economy.

george

- iambiguous

January 19, 2009 at 5:55pm

george:  "And I would challenge you or anyone who makes the claim that, in discussing the moral and political parameters of any moral or political issue, one can evaluate and judge this idealistically."

I don't see the challenge, sorry.  What are the moral parameters of a moral issue, if not the issue?  Or indeed the political parameters of a political issue?  The terms cancel each other out in the sense that e.g. the environmental aspects of an environmental question will have definitely to do with the environment.  In any case, my point was that idealistic solution (e.g. protecting ANWAR permanently, or banning all abortions) does not need (but may have) a transcendental framework, as it can be measured against, for example, a pragmatic solution that might claim better chances for success even if the idealistic goal is not foregrounded.  Political idealism per se is not about knowledge -- although the experience at its base may be -- but rather about a measure of a potential.

Not only that.  If all discussion of human transactions required "thoroughly grappling with crucial variables like congenital traits, identity [Heidegger's dasein], enculturation [early childhoon indoctrination], the limits of language, contingency, chance and change, being and nothingness," very few transactions would be discussed at all.  As we all appreciatively grasp, such discussion does not require a prelimary seminar on absolutes.  Especially absolutes -- as you correctly note -- upon which there is no general agreement.

Again, I don't get your Citizen Kane ref in relation to FDR (unless you're now saying you didn't mean FDR).  Nobody denies that capitalism is a manifestion of a political economy.  So is any economic system you can mention if it involves a polity (= if it isn't just a mathematical model).

As someone said on another thread -- grab a beer and chill out, dude.  You need it.  And stop thinikng that you have access to some kind of enlightenment that other folks here don't.  They do..  They just don't drag it along the street like a float at a 4th July parade.

- ironyroad

January 19, 2009 at 6:42pm

Irony,

"What are the moral parameters of a moral issue, if not the issue?"

If I get into a debate with someone about the morality of abortion, my first point is always to suggest there are so many conflicting and contradictory variables involved, the parameter of the debate is, for all practical purposes, infinite.

Then I wait for them to purpose their own. In other words, I wait for them to haul out a premise, attach it to additional premises and then conclude that because the premies are true, their conclusion [by definition] must also be true. Then THAT becomes the limit of THEIR parameter.

Suppose, for example, we were discussing the film Juno---the movie about the teen who got pregnant, went to get it aborted and chose instead to give the baby up for adoption. Let's suppose it was based on a true story.

[because we know there are thousands of real Junos who go through this each year--and without the support of loving, nonjudgmental parents].

My point then becomes this: That...sans God...it is not possible for mere mortals to EVER resolve whether, if Juno had decided to abort the fetus instead of bringing it to term, her choice [and her follow through behavior] is either ethical or unethical.

Then I contrast that with the way in which it ALWAYS possible for an obstetrician to resolve whether or not she actually IS pregnant.

The first set of relationships revolve around value judgments while the second revolve around human biology.

Basically I try to make people understand how profoundly different these relationships are.

Now, you say the first set of relationships doesn't need a transcendental framework. But then I point out how "in reality" [out in the real world where we are talking about THIS woman with THIS unwanted pregnancy making THIS choice and not THAT one] we are, over and again, bumping into people who insist that abortion either IS or is NOT moral. They may insist that to God [theirs] it is a sin, or that it is MY body so only I should decide. Then what? Then this: If the day comes where abortion is said to be...legally...murder, the pro choice woman with the unwanted pregnancy can argue until she is blue in the face, but if she has the abortion, she gets arrested for murder.

You say I say, "If all discussion of human transactions required 'thoroughly grappling with crucial variables like congenital traits, identity [Heidegger's dasein], enculturation [early childhoon indoctrination], the limits of language, contingency, chance and change, being and nothingness,' very few transactions would be discussed at all."

Yes, but if it is pointed out enough times HOW these varialbles might BE relevant to the debate about abortion, people are less likely to go to extremes based on no discussion at all....or in spitting out their "arguments" in each other's face. Once someone believes, "God says it's a Sin, end of story" or "it's my body, my choice, end of story", where do we go from there? Here: who has the political power to enforce their version of the abortion narrative?

Nobody denies that capitalism is a political economy? If we were to call a 1000 people at random out of a big fat telephone book, how many do you imagine would know how "political" and "economy" function in realtionship to Marx's understanding of Capitalism as a "political economy"? Watch a few Jaywalking episodes on Leno, and you will be surprised if more than a handful have ever considered this relationship AT ALL.

As for "chilling out" in here, at least a couple of times a day a post of mine exists primarily to draw out the yuks in folks who like their humor droll, dry or wry.

But this IS a blog from TNR, right? Do you read the magazine every other week wondering why almost all the articles or essays sound nothing at all like The Onion?

There are folks in here who like turning the discussions into a sitting around the campfire with my buddies thing. At least that's as near as I can make of it. Well, that's not me. They have facebooks and myspaces for stuff like that, right?

george walron

- iambiguous

January 20, 2009 at 12:43am