I've been told I expect too much of TV pundits, but these pundits are the sum of public discourse for many Americans. "Whether or not you agree" is the opening bell of every political discussion on the airwaves, as it waves off questions of substance. These questions are bracketed to avoid a peculiarly American instinct in public discourse. And it is the instinct to do the following: to lie, and to lie about everything in public life -- to lie about everything that if said truthfully might offend the various sensitivities of the manifold consumer-citizenship being purchased by advertising dollars. To be fair, this lying has roots in a kind of salesman's optimism with a long history in the United States--old enough to be noted by Tocqueville. Americans are bullshit artists of the highest order; it's not that other societies aren't subject to such conformities, it's just in the United States there are so many taboos as to make authentic public discourse virtually impossible. (Naturally, communications technologies such as television have only amplified these tendencies).
On CNN's Anderson Cooper, Candy Crowley leads off on Obama's speech today with the caveat "whether or not you agree with what Barack Obama said," and then launches into the staple of political discussion on American TV: whether or not the speech "worked." And this is the theme of every show on television: Obama had a strategy, he "had to do this" to address concerns about Reverend Wright; the coping strategy either was brilliant or it was not; it will go over with working class Pennsylvania whites or not (as if the Obama campaign is dumb enough to think it can budge polls, in a state with solid Clinton demographics, with a speech about race; or desperate and cynical enough to pander in a race where he holds a delegate lead that will not budge substantially either way, no matter what the results in the remaining states).
There is little about the substance of the speech: whether Obama is right about race, whether or not Americans can move beyond it. There is little about Obama's obvious sincerity. There is little about the greatness of the moment -- a greatness rarely exhibited in American politics -- in which a politician is courageous enough to give the frankest speech on race yet given by a modern presidential candidate, despite the fact that it is highly risky to his campaign. And there is none of the sense that commentariat might share his passion: the question is whether Joe Schmoe, especially white Joe Schmoe, has been manipulated by a crafty and self-serving politician.
I've been told I expect too much of TV pundits, but these pundits are the sum of public discourse for many Americans. "Whether or not you agree" is the opening bell of every political discussion on the airwaves, as it waves off questions of substance. These questions are bracketed to avoid a peculiarly American instinct in public discourse. And it is the instinct to do the following: to lie, and to lie about everything in public life -- to lie about everything that if said truthfully might offend the various sensitivities of the manifold consumer-citizenship being purchased by advertising dollars. To be fair, this lying has roots in a kind of salesman's optimism with a long history in the United States--old enough to be noted by Tocqueville. Americans are bullshit artists of the highest order; it's not that other societies aren't subject to such conformities, it's just in the United States there are so many taboos as to make authentic public discourse virtually impossible. (Naturally, communications technologies such as television have only amplified these tendencies).
Try and describe the problems of the black community -- their roots in slavery and segregation notwithstanding -- and you are a racist. Point out that American foreign policy is murderous and cynical in the extreme -- something so well-documented as to require leafing through a rudimentary American history book -- and you "hate America." Point out the connection between these policies and 9/11 and you are saying "America deserved 9/11." Criticize the Iraq war and point out war's inevitable atrocities as they occur, and you have not lived up to the "support our troops" mantra. Point out that blacks have reasons for their resentment and anger, and you have engaged in reverse racism.
This is to say that despite the unhelpful tone of Rev. Wright's remarks, what is really offensive to American ears is that someone would say anything that doesn't flatter every narcissistic fault-line in their brittle identities, whether that identification is racial, sexual, or national. Every statement of substance in American public discourse is simply scandalous: and so such statements are avoided. The fact that nauseating, pandering bullshit artists dominate public office scarcely registers with most Americans, who say they want something different but punish truth at every turn. Truth is the enemy of the people.
To their credit, now that someone like Barack Obama has come along many Americans identify with his sincerity more than their own identity politics. On the other hand, many pundits are tin-eared to it: the riveting, sincere, and highly unusual bluntness of Obama's speech "works," but otherwise it is not so impressive. That someone who is uniquely not a bullshit artist has come along hardly registers. Registering it might mean noticing, for instance, that Obama has merely reaffirmed many of Wright's observations with a different tone: more conciliatory than divisive, mournful than angry, nuanced and forgiving than generalizing and condemnatory. It is simply honesty--offensive to American ears, somehow palatable in a man of decency, and at this point in American history it really is our only hope: that Americans develop the habit of being willing to scream at each other from pulpits before they degrade themselves by skulking in the pews, paying self-conscious homage to every American false idol.
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