That Utopian Impulse.

Last night I heard Barack Obama declare to a rally in Missouri, "We're going to totally transform the United States of America!"

Totally?  Does it need it?  Do we want it?  I mean, sure, it's got problems (it's the worst except for all the rest, etc.), but I thought it was pretty good and evolving to be better, in spite of the inevitable setbacks.

That reminded me of the one truly scary thing -- only one -- I've heard Michelle Obama say, and it hasn't been much commented on.  She said, "We know how the world should look!  We know how the world should look!"  She felt so strongly about that she said it twice.

People who are sure they know how the world should look (they are not found only on the left, of course) can get quite totalitarian about "transforming" it, given the chance.  This, it strikes me, is a major argument for limited government.  I wouldn't want to be governed by right-wing Christian theocrats, and I don't want to be governed by left-wing utopians.  The messy marketplace of contending ideas, and the developments that go on at a much deeper level than ideas, can be trusted, in my unauthorized opinion, more than any programmatic vision of social justice, and more than the Bible.  (This perspective is not so much Libertarian as Taoist, but the two can comport rather nicely.)

Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress; Sarah Palin and a Republican Congress -- those are the two scariest scenarios I can imagine.  They both amount to takeovers by control freaks who "know how the world should look."  We're a lot closer to the former than the latter.  We could be subjected to two years of intensive leftist social engineering before Congress changes hands.  Sarah Palin and Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, would kinda cancel out.

I doubt that John McCain thinks he knows exactly how the world should look (though I'm sure he has a strong sense of how it shouldn't look).  In that respect, his age is in his favor.

P.S. For a fine Taoist political fable about the do-gooder impulse run amok, read Ursula K. LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven.  (I know, I'm repeating myself.)

Comments

[Tom Strong]

I'm really not scared of either of those visions - because frankly, they won't happen like that. I'm not happy with a lot of Obama's proposals, but all of them are basically incrementalist, and most are unlikely to be implemented in any case.

And I have yet to see the evidence that Palin would govern as any more of a radical fundamentalist than Bush has. While (like Obama!) he sometimes speaks like a radical, his governing strategy has in most regards been incrementalist as well, even when he had a supportive Congress. Her record suggests that, in the unlikely event she would actually govern, she would be pretty similar to him.

[Tom Strong]

That's not to say, BTW, that I think you are wrong to be wary of Obama + Democratic majority. I think that's the best reason to vote against him*. But I'm more concerned about what he'd let Congress get away with, than with what he'd try to implement.

*though like Alan, I ended up voting for him.

[amba]

Well, maybe it's just a boogeyman (-woman). But it's my boogeyman.

Conservatives are forever pointing out how government's power and presence grew by mighty and irreversible leaps after 1860, 1932, and 1968.

Thank God it's really hard to amend the Constitution.

[amba]

The one thing I hate most about voting for McCain is adding to that "older, white" demographic. It doesn't matter what my reasons are. I become counted as one more old, racist, stick-in-the-mud enemy of the future.

[Michael Reynolds]

Annie:

With all the affection in the world, I have to say that you are being perfectly ridiculous. You are jumping at shadows, listening to partisan ravers, swallowing the hooks that are baited for you and imagining that knee jerk opposition to the side you believe is taking you for granted is intellectual independence.

Do you really think that Warren Buffet, Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin and Colin Powell are missing some crazy utopian plot that only you and your crazier commenters have discerned? Is Obama surrounded by crazy people? Is he running his campaign like a whack job? You're grabbing at straws -- a Michelle Obama speech? Really? -- trying to prove a case for which there is simply no evidence.

Even Pat Buchanan says he believes Obama will govern as a centrist.

I don't think you're making even a little bit of sense when it comes to Obama. But I think you are so honest and fair-minded that you'll admit this later, when this momentary lapse in common sense has run its course.

[amba]

Nope, he's not running his campaign like a whack job. He's running it like a highly competent, very slick marketer. And he's simply refusing to answer questions a simple straightforward answer to which would either allay fears or render them ridiculous. This editing and prettying-up of reality (I realize it's the modern means of communication) rings my alarm bells. The most insidious kind of groupthink is the one you're massaged into wanting to get on board with, not the one that's imposed.

Yes, I am reassured by the people he's surrounded himself with. I hope he does govern as a centrist. When I see him talking with someone one-on-one, I like him immensely. He seems open to even challenging questions, and I wonder why his interviewers don't ask them.

I also wonder why you, who were for the surge before there was a surge, are not disturbed by his refusal to acknowledge it. Is he just keeping the base pacified?

[Elyas]

We talked about this a while back, so you may have already read Obama's books, but if you haven't, I think you'd get a lot out of The Audacity of Hope before the election. There isn't a sense at all that Obama is a rigid idealist. His thought process is in many ways like yours--he mulls over both sides of nearly every issue. He can't bring himself to dismiss the conservative viewpoint, even on issues like abortion, and he has plenty of criticism for traditional liberal philosophies, as well.

Maybe the two of us can read the same book and walk away with wildly different conclusions, but I don't get the impression from that (or anything else I've read directly from him) that he has utopian impulses, aside from his belief that he can bridge the conservative-liberal divide.

[karen]

Ann Althouse sure lost her ability to remain un-biast, eh? Did you read her account of B.Obama's Aunt and Uncle in Boston? Along w/quoted Gospel of Matthew.

[amba]

Well, I have, like three days left to read that book -- I better get crackin'!

[Danny]

Ehh. While I always value your perspective, your centrism, your wariness, and your intellect, I'm shocked that you would really be bothered by those two lines ("We're going to totally transform the United States of America!" and "We know how the world should look!"). Those are both so obviously typical campaign mantras that have been tossed out in one form or another in every election for the past two hundred years. Smug and arrogant, yes, but I've seen NOTHING in Obama's words, deeds, or actions to date that suggests he is planning some radical leftist agenda although I'm sure he will be accused of enacting one even before he takes office in January (oops, IF he wins). And as far as smug, outrageous, over-the-top statements go about what is right, what is good, what this country should look like, who are the REAL AMERICANS, the McCain campaign has spewed far, far more incendiary statements than Obama and his wife, in my opinion. Is the Obama campaign guilty of excess hubris from time to time? Oh yeah. Has there ever been a candidate who is not guilty of such hubris? Maybe Adlai Stevenson?

[amba]

Right on that. I don't like the "Real Americans" nativism either. Although I think it comes from a real fear that a way of life is passing away and that traditionalist white Americans are becoming an endangered species. It's a compound of losing majority status, feeling like the target of unjust blame, and feeling that the values you've stood for, instead of becoming universal, are being abandoned and trashed. You notice how much conservative rhetoric is that of being a beleaguered, back-against-the-wall minority.

Much of this extreme sense of alienation is a direct reaction to the confidence of liberal multiculturalists who have a kind word for every ingredient in the melting pot (or salad bowl) EXCEPT the traditional white American. While the most promising route back from the brink is for liberals to express some thoughtful appreciation for traditional American values and see some point in newcomers adopting some of them. I will certainly grant that Obama in his words, if not in his record of deeds, does just that. If his record of deeds backed it up, I would definitely be voting for him.

[ASC]

The Obamas are riding a wave of screaming supporters and they let it go to their heads from time to time. But, in quieter moments, both have displayed the kind of even temperament and grounded reasoning that leads me to believe they're not radicals bent on remaking the world in their own image.

If elected, I actually expect Obama to advance his agenda with more caution than did our last Democratic president. Let's not forget the way Clinton tried to barnstorm through his first 100 days and how quickly he got shot down, even with a Democratic Congress. I think Obama knows enough not to try a similar approach.

[amba]

I hope you're right.

[RW Rogers]

ABC News Washington bureau chief Jake Tapper has compiled a handy list of Obama's promises yesterday in Sarasota, Florida: Obama Claus That's quite a list.

[Donna B.]

I've been reading a lot of history lately because I'm deep into the genealogy addiction again. I'm not one of those who just gathers names and places.

Anyway, what I've come to realize is that there is a set of American values that most new settlers (legal and a lot of the illegal) adopt. Mostly it's a dream of acquisition, and increasing their families' welfare.

What's wrong with that? Why does it have to be labeled "white"?

[amba]

Who said there was anything wrong with it? I don't think it's "white" -- that's just the point. It's traditional, and a lot of people who live by it think (often wrongly) that new groups are coming in who lack the work ethic, don't care to learn English, their kids are going into gangs instead of finishing high school . . . the values argument gets attached to a certain xenophobia, and that's made worse by the tendency since the '60s to glamorize the underclass and despise the "square" working class.

[PatHMV]

EVERY immigrant group we've ever had has been stigmatized by the previous immigrant groups (who had since become considered "Real Americans") as lazy, shiftless, dirty, lacking in American values.

Except for immigrant groups which appear to succeed very well. Those immigrants work TOO hard, don't share our values, are cheating us blind with their successful businesses, keeping our kids out of good schools, whatever.

Then eventually the sons and daughters of those new immigrant groups learn English, fall in love with a daughter or son of some horrified "Real American," and in a few generations the whole cycle starts all over again.

I think the biggest danger to the country, frankly, is all the people running around acting as if the same stuff we've always been through is some new great, unprecedented danger which must be overcome. We've always been "divided," our political campaigns have always been nasty, dirty, unpleasant affairs. We will continue. The end of the world is not nigh.

[PatHMV]

Elyas... the thing is, while Sen. Obama certainly talks a good game about being open to all points of view, being respectful of conservative views, etc., his voting record shows that he in the end discounts all of his "understanding" of the other view and votes in a fairly consistent manner. That suggests to me that his respect for others' opinions is somewhat disingenuous, that it's simple politeness or a political tactic rather than an actual acceptance of and true respect for opposing view points.

[Donna B.]

Sorry Amba, I misread your comment.

". . . the values argument gets attached to a certain xenophobia, and that's made worse by the tendency since the '60s to glamorize the underclass and despise the "square" working class." --Amba

That explanation makes sense, but the idea behind it (not saying it didn't/doesn't happen) makes absolutely no sense at all!

[wj]

It has been my observation, over several decades, that those who say that they will (or even just want to) "totally transform" the country have one interesting feature in common. They actually want to do no such thing.

They actually think that the country is mostly really great. But they see a few areas, albeit important ones, which they think seriously need change. And, not least because they think that mostly things are great, they simly cannot imagine that anyone would even consider changing any of those things. So a "total transformation" is actually a tweak by any objective standard.

I suppose this balances those who think, and proclaim loudly, that any change to anything, no matter how slight, is going to bring on the end of the world. Also makes for great rhetoric...but uter nonsense if anyone actually thinks about it.

[amba]

We've always been "divided," our political campaigns have always been nasty, dirty, unpleasant affairs.

And we've probably always believed it had never been this bad before, and that the world was ending. So why should this time be any different? :)

Maybe it's just that the passions of the past fade and are forgotten (both in the memories of those who lived them and as those people fade away).

[PatHMV]

Interesting, by the way, how the Obama family's "we must transform the world" is mere standard campaign speechifying, but McCain's "Real American" shtick (which is dramatically at odds with his past record on being very "soft" on immigration issues according to all the Republicans I know) is absolute evidence of his divisive nastiness.

[karen]

"Right on that. I don't like the "Real Americans" nativism either. Although I think it comes from a real fear that a way of life is passing away and that traditionalist white Americans are becoming an endangered species."

Hammer to nail, amba.

My husband had a minor out-patient surgery and the doc was-- IDK-- agressive?

Anyway, he asked what kind of work my husband did. He answered that he was a farmer and then the doc looked at me and asked- what are you, then? The Milkmaid(sexist, eh?)(i thought so). I said- since birth-- and then said that we are, actually, the Indigenous Few.

Heh- i made that one up. Yet, farmers are dying in VT(the kind taht we represent). Spudly's a brother in the field:0).

I want more than a Bernie Sanders mouthpiece to represent me. Oh yeah- i live in VT. Guess i'm sunk.

[Callimachus]

We are about to go from the most right-wing administration in American history to what could be the most left-wing. I'm getting a feeling 2009 will be a year we'll look back on and wish we could forget.

There are an awful lot of people now who expect Obama to change everything. That's what worries me. Either they are going to be bitterly disappointed -- and go on a witch hunt for those who are blocking this transformation -- or the new administration really is going to try to go all FDR on us.

Even if you slept through the 20th century, you might have seen this on the screen credits: Utopia Kills.

Obama has a sensibility large enough to embrace any number of radicals on the left. Even if he (says he) disagrees with them, he will be their friend and sit in their kitchens and listen to and learn from them and take their messages to heart. Someone elsewhere recently asked: Does Obama have any conservative friends? Or even any non-left-leaning friends?

[realpc]

If Obama were a leftist utopian, would he have raised such a tremendous amount of campaign money? How many radical leftists have money to donate? I don't feel that I know much about Obama's ideas, since all we hear now are political speeches with no intellectual content. I don't get the impression that he is an arrogant know-it-all revolutionary, and he appears too thoughtful and unemotional for that.

I wish I knew more about what he really thinks. I know he has a lot of faith in the central government to improve things, and I am very skeptical of that approach. On the other hand, we are already very far from our founders' libertarianism, and have been for decades. We survived the New Deal, so maybe we can survive a new New Deal.

We count on Social Security and Medicaire, and no one sends back the checks because the programs are too socialist. The central government funds all kinds of things that are prohibited by, or not mentioned in, the constitution.

I don't think intense government intervention is healthy in the long run, but, as I said, it hasn't killed us yet. We will now swing towards socialism and eventually we'll swing back towards free enterprise again. We are always being torn between conflicting ideologies, as we should be.

[hmmm]

hope and change are bad things?

multiculturalism is a bad thing?

i don't even know what to say right now. yeah, i get it people are angry and hurt... that's why they yell and scream and call them true americans.

but as a woman of color, how am i even supposed to deal with that?

i was a former mccain supporter and now i'm voting for obama. i simply can't get past the absolute hatred at those rallies. the thought that someone hates me so much -- who doesn't know me -- simply because i'm multicultural... is too much. and to see mccain and palin feeding that frenzy and hyping it up... encouraging it - it's not right, and i can't and won't condone those actions. you may see it differently (i guess you see the utopia thing as just as scary).

i'm heartened by the stories and the people i've seen who've come together under the democratic ticket in 2008. watching the dnc and the rnc this summer was like watching two different worlds. and i believe in hope because without hope... what's the point? why vote? as for post-election, i'm a realist and i know it's going to be hard if obama wins. but i'm willing to stick around and actually do something to try and make things work. If mccain wins, I seriously doubt that there's room for me at the table, since it's been made perfectly clear that I'm not welcomed, nor am I wanted.

[amba]

I've been swayed that way by those same phenomena, hmmm. Then I get swayed back by the corresponding phenomena on the other side. Whatever else Sarah Palin is, she's been a litmus test. She's brought out into the open the utter contempt that a lot of people on the left have for people like her. It goes far beyond saying she's not qualified. People have had absolutely no compunction about expressing those feelings and being proud of them. Isn't that also bigotry? (Obama has not expressed it -- except, oops, a little bit in his "clinging" remark -- but nor has McCain.)

Who is going to be the better uniter? Who is going to be the better loser? I don't know.

[realpc]

http://www.alternet.org/story/105447/the_triumph_of_ignorance%3A_how_morons_succeed_in_u.s._politics/?page=2

This article explains how "morons" like Sarah Palin can succeed in American politics. It's all because so many Americans are religious and therefore stupidly reject Darwinism. If Americans would become educated Darwinists and give up religion, all of our problems would be solved.

And that is why we should all vote for Democrats on Tuesday.

[realpc]

That link didn't work. It's the first article at
http://www.alternet.org

[realpc]

http://www.alternet.org

Try again.

[realpc]

And that article is not unusual, I have been reading things like that for years. The division of America centers on Darwinism vs. Intelligent Design/religion. That is how they separate the brights from the morons. They don't mind that Clinton and Obama are, supposedly, Christians -- politicians have to pretend to be Christian or they would never get elected. And they aren't fundamentalist creationists like Sarah Palin and G.W. Bush.

I wish I could find out what, if anything, Obama thinks about Intelligent Design, and whether he thinks he's too smart to believe in it. Maybe he has no interest in biology and therefore never thought about it. I would like to know.

[amba]

Oh, but the beer! The bike paths!

[RW Rogers]

When Obama takes office, one of his first acts should be to grant his aunt asylum.

[RW Rogers]

Secretary of Defense Gates says that the Aghan conflict must not be seen as 'America's war'. It seems to me that it is just a wee bit late for that now.

[Michael Reynolds]

Amba:

Of course Obama is engaged in slick marketing. McCain is trying to engage in slick marketing, he just happens to be incompetent at it. So we penalize the guy who's actually good at what both are attempting? Is there another profession where you prefer the least competent person?

Obama's vague on promises? As opposed to McCain's specific promise to use a ban on earmarks to solve every fiscal problem we have? He's Jesus with the loaves and fishes. And yet Obama's the one with the God complex.

You're not a little troubled by McCain's weird and panicky reaction to the economic meltdown?

"Suspend the campaign! Cancel the debate! Here I come like Mighty Mouse to save the day! And now . . . I'll sit silent in the relevant meetings, make phone calls from Arlington while accusing Obama of "phoning it in," and then I'll announce success just before the deal falls apart and agree to a debate even though my own preconditions have not been met."

Tada! Leadership!

As for the surge, yeah Obama is fudging it for his base. I'd be more annoyed except that in order to pacify his base McCain picked an ignoramus to be a heartbeat away from the biggest job on earth. KInd of a different order of magnitude, there.

You're seeing what you want to see. Obama's slick so he's suspicious, McCain's incompetent so he's reliable. Obama panders to his base, McCain panders to his, but you see only one side. Both men make promises they know full well they cannot keep: McCain's promised to balance the budget in 4 years. Does any rational person believe that?

As for accomplishments, what are John McCain's accomplishments, exactly? Name some. A campaign finance regime that his own side hates and that is now defunct? An immigration bill that went nowhere? McCain's never run anything in the CEO sense of the idea except his campaign. Which he managed to bankrupt, then revive, and then allowed to wander lost through the gutter until it imploded in recrimination and backbiting.

Obama's also never run anything except a campaign. A campaign which even his enemies admit is a marvel to behold.

If anyone has proven to be an empty suit in this election it's McCain. He cannot decide on a message. He finally got the "3:00 am phone call," the meltdown, and guess what? He freaked out and made an ass of himself while Obama was rock solid. He has run an almost 100% negative campaign. He's now running around Pennsylvania yammering about Joe the Plumber.

John McCain and his ninny Veep and Joe the Plumber spending their days calling Obama a socialist for supporting the same progressive income tax McCain does. This is your team?

[Michael Reynolds]

She's brought out into the open the utter contempt that a lot of people on the left have for people like her.

People like her? Like what? Governors of cold states?

What sort of people do you assume she is? And on what basis do you assume it? Because the people she was supposed to appeal to she's obviously lost. The "common folk" seem to have seen through her act. 59% think she's unfit for the office.

The bigotry here is on the part of smug, elitist, sexist Republicans who assumed that women would identify with her solely because she's a woman. And that she somehow was one with every league bowler and beer drinker. That's the insult. Just because a guy comes home from work with dirty fingernails does not mean he's incapable of judging a candidate on criteria other than assumed cultural similarities. Are the common folk incapable of actually preferring the smart, well-educated, calm and steady candidate? Are they prisoners of their "class" the poor losers?

I've been a stock clerk, resident manager, busboy, waiter, telemarketer, house painter, burger flipper, bowling alley pin jammer, hotel night clerk and janitor. With all due respect, you're a New York intellectual. You are the elite. (Sorry to hurl so devastating an insult. But you are an expensively-educated writer and editor from Chicago and . . . gasp . . . Manhattan. The Village, for God's sake.) So is it possible that the prejudice here is yours? That by assuming Joe Sixpack would identify with any mean-mouthed bimbo who could wink and drop her "g's?" you're demonstrating the elitist snobbery you think you see in others?

[amba]

No, actually, Michael, I don't see only one side. If only I did.

[karen]

No, Michael. You're wrong.

Amba is, if nothing- very open to see the faults of herself and others. Right now- the smell of bigotry is everywhere. Yet, to rabidly attack a person on who they are: on the way they talk or dress or wear their hair& (@the risk of leaving myself open to counter-attack... pray)- is schoolyard bigoty at it's worst and it's coming from the ones who believe they are above that kind of behaviour.

It's not what you've ever been- it's who you are. One can be all those things you mention and absolutely hate it, or one can be a mechanic or a hairdresser or a farmer and admit to love.

I really, really wish McCain were a black man. To wish this may make me a racist- that's the meme on the Conservative blogs since the vote against B.Obama makes me a presumed racist. Wouldn't it be so much easier if he were?

I could say i wish B.Obama were the Conservative choice, instead.

hmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm sorry.

[amba]

What I see is that Obama is so bright and attractive and thoughtful and eloquent (and as an added bonus he's black, which means we can commit this splashy historic action and force the flower of racial progress when that was actually not the main problem facing us at this time) that he's bedazzled a lot of people into overlooking his cautious and premature rise to power and his either lack of courage or strategic avoidance of risk-taking. (All those Present votes -- lacking the ID to make them presidential.) I am susceptible to being bedazzled and therefore resistant to it. McCain is past his time, which concerns me, and on international affairs Palin is far underriper than Obama. The more fervent version of End Times belief in proximity to the nuclear codes also scares the bejezus out of me despite the reassurances I've received about the more moderate version. On the other hand, McCain is much more of a known quantity, much more of a proven centrist, which I am, experienced and wily and wary but not reflexively hostile in dealing with foreign countries (case in point Vietnam), and he has a history of actions, as piebald as any man's, that at least show some courage and independence here and there.

All you can do by flamethrowing is sew up my vote for McCain. I'm kind of idiotically countersuggestible, you may have noticed. If Obama wins without my one vote, a part of me will be excited and curious to see what happens.

[karen]

... if nothing? I think i meant-- if anything... ?

Duh.

[amba]

Hey, Karen identifies with Palin. Karen is very bright and even (gasp) college-educated. There's a whole world out there that you're simply dismissing, and the more people like you and me dismiss it, the stronger and the more estranged and extreme it gets. It is gearing up to put Palin not a heartbeat away from the Presidency, but IN it. Motivated in no small part by revenge on your very attitude.

[amba]

LOL. I just found this here and somehow it sums up my dialog with you, Michael. (By the way, I have no idea what it's saying.)

"I couldn't possibly fail to disagree with you less."

[Michael Reynolds]

I'm not flame throwing, Annie, I'm questioning your premises.

Remember when you first announced you'd support McCain? And how absolutely no one was surprised? Everyone who reads this blog knew how you were going to come down. I don't believe your ambivalence for a moment. It's about as real as me claiming to be ambivalent.

And yes, it's fear over hope. And no, you don't have any factual or rational support for your point of view. It's emotional. (Blaming me or anyone else for somehow forcing your hand is proof of that.) You are about two steps into grassy knoll territory here in your Obama paranoia. But as I said, you are an honest and fair-minded person, and you will eventually realize you've been had by the fear and smear campaign.

You can be as irritated with me as you like, it doesn't change the fact that I'm right.

[amba]

I don't believe your ambivalence for a moment. It's about as real as me claiming to be ambivalent.

Well then, you're not good at reading people. I'm about completely divided between reason and emotion. Every time I think I can find a reason to vote for Obama, I feel primitively happy. I just don't trust what my emotions are telling me. At the same time, you know I'm not as profoundly frightened of an Obama presidency as some people around here.

[Danny]

Can I make a suggestion in all seriousness? When all of this is behind us, I think you should publish an article (book??) that includes all of the blog comment repartee between Annie Gottlieb and Michael Reynolds. You two are so well matched, such excellent writers, and have (in many ways) such opposing views that I am completely riveted whenever you "get into it" with each other. Such a book featuring the writings of the two of you would be a GREAT READ and would be the first pick for my pre-Inaugural reading list! You would be the 21st century version of Point/Counterpoint's James Kilpatrick and Shana Alexander (or Dan Aykroyd and Jane Curtin--"Jane, you ignorant slut!").

Would you consider it?

[amba]

I'm just trying to convince Michael to go into talk radio. Outside the right, they've all failed at that. He could do it, especially because he's so deadly soft-spoken in person. He'd be devastating.

[karen]

Just to say: i identify w/Palin because i know she identifies w/me.

It goes beyond the ~hockey Mom~ label and into a much deeper understanding of trial.