Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
… For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
God bless America.
In a comment, Mishu linked to “The Lie of a Liberal Arts Education.” Jeff Goldstein, of Protein Wisdom, tells us after a political cartoon was posted at his site, an old teacher e-mailed him, requesting that his name be struck from the list of Goldstein’s teachers. That we are responsible for those who have studied under us would make neither my raft of old teachers very happy nor me about many of my students. (Jonathan’s need to fix my comma splices, for instance, must make one of them spin in his grave.)
I’d seen the comment (for the usual reason, groggy in the morning and late at night, I check out Instapundit). And I’d remembered it clearly, since it brought home the adolescent and enforced homogeneity of academic thinking but also because the cartoon was especially memorable, disturbing the way political cartoons can be. The visual and analogous are powerful weapons. The Muslims realize that – and we should, too. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we follow the actions of either the Jihadists or the average college faculty. When I went back later to show it to my husband, the cartoon was linked but no longer at the top of the page. It provokes, but it has a certain rightness. I found it and my husband was repelled. He felt it was in bad taste. His explanation for that gut reaction was not a defense of Obama nor of the content or the process of Healthcare legislation – as would any sentient being, he sees those as pretty bad. Nor did he see it as racist – indeed, worrying about that label would make any criticism difficult.
“We proved that this government, a government of the people and by the people, still works for the people.”
That’s what Obama said after House Democrats passed his health scheme. It’s a revealing remark. The Democratic leadership ignored broad public opposition to pass this extremely consequential bill on a bare majority by a combination of dishonest rhetoric, bribery, scummy parliamentary maneuvers and sheer willfulness. Then the President had the nerve to abuse Lincoln’s great words to tell us — most of whom opposed the bill, as he well knows — that he and his colleagues did it at our direction (“of the people and by the people”) and for our benefit. I interpret his words, a characteristic inversion of the truth, as a direct insult to his political opponents, who on this issue are now the majority of the country. He knows that we know he is lying and he doesn’t care, because he thinks he can get away with it. And he appears to enjoy it. This is not someone who can be trusted with power.
I posted an essay last month, discussing how the Obama administration took a stance concerning the Falkland Islands that was sure to annoy Great Britain.
The reason as I see it for this strange move, which is almost certainly going to very slightly erode the special relationship that the United States enjoys with the UK without gaining anything in return, is due to Obama’s overall foreign policy vision.
It would seem that he is pursuing a Jeffersonian strategy, where commitments beyond our borders are seen as messy and dangerous. An added bonus to divesting the US of allies is that military spending can be cut in favor of domestic budgets, as there will be few reasons to project power across the globe if we don’t have any friends.
Two items that Glenn linked to yesterday support my conclusions.
I’ve always been a sucker for the great Jungian archetypes. When Jammie-Wearing-Fool pointed this out, the Times’ image reverberated. But not in a completely pleasant way. The Hitler meme may be tired, but my instinctive memory was of Triumph of the Will, which taught me how much images evoked even when they are countered by reason and knowledge.
A Reynolds’ reader points out the cross isn’t appropriate for the leader of the most powerful nation on earth; he’s more a Herod/Caeser/Pilate. And perhaps Lent isn’t a great time to blaspheme. But, then, does the Times even know the meaning that gives power to the symbols they manipulate? They swim through a world whose history is rich with such symbols, but they don’t understand the richness within an image. Of course, they do cherish that frisson of edgy sentiment. And they know enough to know that they lose power if the images are of chocolates and the Easter Bunny. (Unless, of course, like the New Yorker, they crucify the bunny.) The Times doesn’t seem campy – over-the-top, perhaps, but not ironic.
But I’m not so easily seduced – indeed, something else strikes me. This picture doesn’t have American heroism, doesn’t have the power of the great American archetypes. American history is of humility linked with grandeur: our presidents are large not because the White House is in their shadow, but rather because they are in its. Neither larger than the office nor wiser than the Constitution, their heroism comes because they reverence those ideas, losing their selves in them. Enlarged by the White House, they are well aware of the distinction between their private selves and the public office they hold but for a term or two.
Our presidents have needed a sureness of touch, a confidence that orders men into battle. But they also needed humility. George Washington handing over his sword, George Washington handing over his office – these are symbols of heroism. Many a man has been a general; few have had the self-respect, the pride in country and history (minimal as that history was for that early, role-defining president), the humility before not the founders but the founders’ ideas. Such humility gives backbone; it comes from a large, simple and even ego-less pride.
We haven’t been seeing much humility lately. But that is what moves us; it structures the archetypes Americans catch their breath over, indeed, the ones that mist our eyes.