BOOKSHELFNOVEMBER 5, 2010 The Thinker The president as intellectual and political philosopher. Article Comments (11) MORE IN BOOKS ยป EmailPrint Save This ? More
+ More Text By PETER BERKOWITZIn mid-October, by which time it had become evident that the November midterm elections would deliver a rebuke of historic proportions, President Barack Obama stated in a New York Times Magazine interview that his mistake had been to neglect "marketing and P.R. and public opinion." His problem, in other words, was a failure to communicate.
This claim is difficult to reconcile with the extraordinary rise in 2009 of an energized grass-roots movement combining disaffected Republicans, libertarians and independents. They seemed to grasp the president's goal: to enact a sweeping progressive agenda. In the best traditions of democracy in America---and by means of town-hall meetings, tea-party rallies and the marvels of social networking---people organized to elect representatives and block the transformative ambitions with which they disagreed.
The president's self-assessment is also difficult to reconcile with James Kloppenberg's thesis in "Reading Obama." Mr. Kloppenberg argues that, thanks to the ideas to which Obama was exposed and the moral and intellectual virtues he cultivated during his journey through the American academy---he was a student at Occidental, Columbia and Harvard Law School and a faculty member at the University of Chicago Law School---he became an exemplar, in word and deed, of moderation, balance and accommodation.
Mr. Kloppenberg is certainly right to call attention to the effect on Mr. Obama's sensibility of "the developments in American academic culture since the 1960's." And he convincingly shows that Mr. Obama's two books, shorter writings and speeches contain thoughtful and sometimes eloquent variations on "a surprising number of the central themes in the American political tradition, particularly as it has come to be understood in the last half century."
But "Reading Obama" does not explain Mr. Obama's failure, in his first 22 months in office, to find common ground with conservatives and independents; his refusal to slow down and win over a majority before proceeding with large-scale reforms; and his readiness, as president, to vilify those who disagree with his policies and purposes.
View Full Image Reading Obama By James T. Kloppenberg (Princeton, 302 pages, $24.95)According to Mr. Kloppenberg, Mr. Obama's uncommon experience---being the son of a white American woman and black African man, living abroad in Indonesia with his mother and her second husband, spending his teenage years in Hawaii in his white grandparents' home---nurtured a gift for seeing the world from a multiplicity of perspectives and for feeling empathy for a diversity of people. So, contends Mr. Kloppenberg, Mr. Obama was well prepared to absorb the best of what was being taught in philosophy, political theory and law at American universities in the 1980s and 1990s---above all, deliberative democracy and philosophical pragmatism.
Deliberative democracy has its roots in the writings of the philosopher John Rawls and in the recovery of the civic-republican tradition in America by, among others, the historian Gordon Wood. It emphasizes the benefits that come from citizens discussing opinions about politics and crafting compromises to achieve the common good. Philosophical pragmatism, for its part, was elaborated by William James and John Dewey. It was revived in the period in which Mr. Obama came of intellectual age, most notably by the philosopher Richard Rorty. It rejects absolutes and instead, as Mr. Kloppenberg writes, "embraces uncertainty, provisionality, and the continuous testing of hypotheses through experimentation." Both deliberative democracy and philosophical pragmatism celebrate open-ended conversation as the animating principle of constitutional democracy.
Mr. Obama, Mr. Kloppenberg explains, brings a "supple understanding," "tenacious hope" and the " 'Christian virtue' of humility" to bear on these ideas. The results, in the author's estimation, are nothing short of spectacular. To the extent possible, Mr. Obama reconciles the claims of the individual and community, of personal freedom and majority rule, of rights and responsibilities. All the while Mr. Obama recognizes that progress is provisional and fragile and appreciates the imperfections of man, the limitations of reason and the tragic necessity, at times, to use force to advance the cause of liberty and equality.
In short, Mr. Kloppenberg's brief intellectual biography of Mr. Obama provides an excellent portrait of the shining self-image of the progressive intellectual. But it proves a poor guide to understanding the connection between Mr. Obama's ideas and his conduct in the White House, because Mr. Kloppenberg fails to take into account the dark side of deliberate democracy and the perversity of pragmatism.
Theorists of deliberative democracy typically denigrate the messy give-and-take among actual flesh-and-blood citizens and dismiss it as the outcome of flawed procedures for conversation. They prefer the conclusions that derive from abstract and sometimes intricate theories. Meanwhile, in the guise of rejecting absolutes, the adherents of philosophical pragmatism absolutize partisan progressive goals and reconceive "moderation" as merely exercising patience and flexibility in the pursuit of progressive ends.
To read Mr. Obama accurately and to grasp fully the connection between his ideas and his politics, one must examine not merely the dreams and hopes that inspire deliberative democracy and philosophical pragmatism but also the intellectual vices that these doctrines foster and the illiberal and antidemocratic tendencies that they spawn. A lot of voters this week, intuitively, did grasp the connection. The problem goes beyond "marketing or P.R." to ideas.
Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution. MORE IN BOOKS EmailPrinter FriendlyOrder Reprints Share: Sort by: Oldest Newest Recommend a comment by clicking 13 hours ago Chris Bolts wrote:"Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
-Barry Goldwater."Pragmatism is the thinly veiled guise of introducing socialism in increments. Incremental socialism is still socialism."
-Me 6 Recommendations Link Track Replies to this Comment 41 minutes ago Gerald Clough replied: Right on. Recommend Link Track Replies to this Comment 11 hours ago John Mcrae wrote: Apply Occam's razor ... Obama was indoctrinate not educated. 5 Recommendations Link Track Replies to this Comment 7 hours ago John Drew wrote:I knew the young Obama while he was a sophomore at Occidental College in Los Angeles. I can verify that he was a simple, garden variety Marxist at the time. Kloppenberg should have interviewed me, I would have set him straight...
9 Recommendations Link Track Replies to this Comment 3 hours ago cary kozberg replied:do you have anything of substance with which to respond to replace the name-calling?
Recommend Link 3 hours ago cary kozberg replied: check Snopes--indicates BO went to Occidental College and has chosen not to have his records released.
1 Recommendation Link 1 hour ago WILLIAM PRIMM replied: Do you have anything to add beside ad hominem attacks? Recommend Link 37 minutes ago Gerald Clough replied:Good info Mr Drew. This is part of the reason that Obama has made such an effort to hide all of his history. Calling Obama is neither an attack or name calling. It is just the fact.
Recommend Link Track Replies to this Comment 5 hours ago Alex Temenid wrote:This book is just a hagiography of Big Brother by some faceless minion in the Ministry of Truth. The terms deliberative democracy and philosophical pragmatism are just Orwellian perversions of the English language to deceive the casual observer about the true intentions of the leftists who dominate Western academia.
4 Recommendations Link Track Replies to this Comment 5 hours ago Michael Gretchen wrote:Self-aggrandizement is the principal virtue in the Obama universe. All the rest is subterfuge, a la "I am a blank canvas".
Recommend Link Track Replies to this Comment 3 hours ago PETER HOLNBACK wrote:Obama is the a liar. The American people are gullible. He is a progressive zealot, a divider and hater. All his scripted speeches were crafted lies. He has done more damage to the fiber of America than good. Intelligence only gives one an opportunity to understand the world. He is a very bright fool.
2 Recommendations Link Track Replies to this Comment 1 hour ago kathy mcmichael wrote:If BO is a thinker & philosopher then he should go to a mountain top, assume a yoga pose & do what he does best. . . . . cause leading this country is apparently not his strong suit. The man is out of his league & January 2013 can't some soon enough.
Recommend Link Track Replies to this Comment 21 minutes ago emory kendrick wrote:It's fairly easy to read obama. He is self centered, ego driven, arrogant, elitist, and is concerned only with forcing a socialist agenda....that most Americans reject, on us. As of today, he announced that we weren't rejecting his policies but were ill informed due to his lack of communication, which is odd, since he's been on every news outlet, talk show, and on every front page for two years....telling us all about how his policies are the only solution to our dilemma. He is either naive, in denial, or too stupid to understand that America was rejecting his policies, his personna, and his party.
Recommend Link Track Replies to this Comment 11 minutes ago William Woodford wrote:How can a review of a book on the thoughts of Obama be complete when it fails to mention Saul Alinsky? Is there any reason to believe that Obama's views diverge from "Rules for Radicals"?
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