There is a funny scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in which Indy and his father are tied to chairs inside a very large stone fireplace, while the rest of the room is on fire. Struggling to free themselves, they accidentally trip a secret lever which causes the fireplace, with the two of them in it, to rotate into an adjacent chamber filled with bad guys standing at tables, drawing up plans. Not good. But the trick fireplace continues without a pause until it has completed a 360 degree rotation, returning the hapless pair to the burning chamber. Old man Jones dead-pans, "Our situation has not improved."
For the third time in a row the Presidential election will not be a "political debate" as that term is generally understood in the world of liberal democracies. There was some chance that this time it would be; that the Obama-McCain race would be like the Dole-Clinton race or the Bush-Dukakis race or the Nixon-Humphrey race -- or virtually any Presidential race prior to 2000.
But with the selection of Governor Palin as McCain's VP nominee we see that the we are in store for a three-peat -- the third election in a row which would not be understood by those who still take the United States to be a small-L liberal democracy. Instead, the debate will be over whether or not the United States should be a small-L liberal democracy. The point at issue is therefore very deep; deeper than is usually recognized on TV and in the newspapers.
To put it simply, the 2008 Presidential race will not be over politics but -- as it was in 2000 and 2004 -- over the purpose of politics. In that sense it will be a meta-debate, and one that many will miss because they thought it was settled long ago.
Here then are the disputants in this argument over what politics is for in the first place. On the one hand, there are those who think that political argument is best aimed at perfecting a pluralistic society of equal citizens who do not agree on metaphysical questions of purpose and meaning, but nevertheless wish to live together under conditions of amicable cooperation, and on the other hand those who think that political debate is about winning, precisely, the metaphysical argument -- about settling fundamental questions of purpose and meaning on the public stage.
Pluralists do not want to address metaphysical questions on the public-political stage. This is not because they think they cannot win but because they think they should not win. Religio-philosophical victory in a political -- as opposed to dinner-table -- setting has, pluralists think, no upside. We get along as a people in the first place because we first agreed that religio-philosophical issues are not something we need to agree upon. We don't debate those matters at the ballot box. Rather, we need only agree on the best ways to further our society to the benefit of all, so that we may in our own ways address questions of purpose and meaning at home. A home secured by a concern for the general welfare.
Fundamentalists assume that the stakes are higher. That what everyone is debating is a question that has, secretly or not, deep and abiding metaphysical import. That is why when fundamentalists are told that Obama is a Muslim, they take great notice. Not because they care what Obama's religion is, but rather because they assume that Obama, like everyone else, is in a metaphysical argument, and means to win it. If he wins, they lose. And the pot could not be fuller. As far as this goes, it does not even matter whether Obama really is a Muslim, only that his answers to the metaphysical questions are somehow different. The fact that Obama, being a pluralist, does not take himself to be having that debate, only causes cognitive dissonance and the appearance that he is trying to win underhandedly. To a fundamentalist, everyone is always trying to win the metaphysical debate.
Pluralists become frustrated with fundamentalists for the following reason. Pluralists would say that pluralists do not, through political debate, wish to prevent anyone -- including fundamentalists -- from doing anything they wish to do. If a fundamentalist thinks zygotes are ensouled they are free to think so, and to not have abortions, and to talk about the ensoulment of zygotes all they wish at home or in church. On the other hand, pluralists would say, what fundamentalists want is to impose their metaphysical answers by law upon everyone. Pro-choice does not prevent anyone from having a baby. Pro-life prevents everyone from getting an abortion, no matter what they think of zygotes and souls. Forbidding teacher-led prayer in public schools prevents no one from praying, while the opposite view mandates that everyone listen to a prayer or get out.
Fundamentalists get frustrated with pluralists for the following reason. Fundamentalists would say that their opponents refuse to acknowledge that pluralism has, like it or not, metaphysical import. If the nation is pro-choice that means that the nation has, in fact, taken a position on the ensoulment of zygotes. Refusing to decide is a defacto and underhanded decision. If the nation forbids led-prayer in schools that means that the nation has, in fact, witting or no, said that some things are more important than God. For example, a pluralism of belief.
We can see this last idea (pluralism must take itself to be more important than God) when fundamentalists accuse pluralists of being "secularists." That word -- "secularist" -- originally designated a view about the correct structure of society and the proper place for various sorts of debate. It was not a synonym for "atheist." "Atheist" is a position in a metaphysical debate. "Secularist" is a view about where that debate should take place. But in the mouths of fundamentalists such as Bill O'Reilly or Pat Buchanan, "secularist" is precisely a synonym for "atheist." This is because, to a fundamentalist, there is no difference between attempts to take religion out of the public square and attempts to crush it. To a fundamentalist, everyone is having the same argument that they are having.
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The difference between 2008 and the previous two elections is not so much that Senator Obama is black -- although that is a not-unrelated factor -- but that he so powerfully represents a return to small-L liberal democracy. Obama raises ire from fundamentalists not because they think he is a Muslim determined to throw the United States over to Islam, but rather because he means to restore the frustratingly (to fundamentalists) "shallow" import of liberal democratic debate. To a fundamentalist, the difference between making America Muslim and making it a pluralistic democracy is a very thin difference, indeed.
To those of us who believe in liberal democracy, Obama represents a promise that is rarely explicitly articulated. I mentioned just now that he promises a return to liberal democracy, a return to a country in which we are a people committed, in the first place, as a people, to an idea. The idea that we are all equal in this country, that no one's religion or ethnic background matters when it comes to citizenship and political belonging. But, of course, that is not quite right. America never truly lived up to the sort of inclusiveness that this way of putting it would indicate. In the past, even during the times when we were explicitly striving to liberal democracy, we failed.
What Obama's candidacy represents is a promise, not to make us a people again, but to make us a people for the first time. To those of us who believe in liberal democracy, this is a promise of exhilarating, almost unspeakable hope. To those who do not believe in liberal democracy, what it promises is a setback, and a major one.
There was some chance that McCain would not campaign as a fundamentalist engaged in the meta-debate about the purpose of governance. There was some chance that he would campaign as Dole and Bush Sr. did: by engaging in a modern-era political debate while skimming fundamentalist votes on the side, by promising them and failing to deliver to them something else altogether. But with the nomination of Sarah Palin, McCain is giving in. He recognizes that he cannot win the political debate, so he will try to win the meta-debate.
McCain is not himself a fundamentalist in the sense described in this diary. Everyone knows that. He believes in the point and purpose of liberal democracy. It is worth asking him, then, why he would try to win an election by sacrificing, for the third weary time in a row, the chance for politics to return to the modern era, at exactly the moment when so many of us are finally willing to embrace it completely.