Shelby Steele most assuredly has Obama’s number. Which of course makes him a racist. Somehow. We’ll figure out how later:
Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.
Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his “leading from behind” profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his “hope and change” campaign slogan came to look like the “hope” of overcoming American exceptionalism and “change” away from it.
So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.
But then again, the American people did elect him. Clearly Americans were looking for a new kind of exceptionalism in him (a black president would show America to have achieved near perfect social mobility). But were they also looking for—in Mr. Obama—an assault on America’s bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural pre-eminence?
American exceptionalism is, among other things, the result of a difficult rigor: the use of individual initiative as the engine of development within a society that strives to ensure individual freedom through the rule of law. Over time a society like this will become great. This is how—despite all our flagrant shortcomings and self-betrayals—America evolved into an exceptional nation.
[…]
At home the values that made us exceptional have been smeared with derision. Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy. For centuries America made sure that no amount of initiative would lift minorities and women. So in liberal quarters today—where historical shames are made to define the present—these values are seen as little more than the cynical remnants of a bygone era. Talk of “merit” or “a competition of excellence” in the admissions office of any Ivy League university today, and then stand by for the howls of incredulous laughter.
Our national exceptionalism both burdens and defames us, yet it remains our fate. We make others anxious, envious, resentful, admiring and sometimes hate-driven. There’s a reason al Qaeda operatives targeted the U.S. on 9/11 and not, say, Buenos Aires. They wanted to enrich their act of evil with the gravitas of American exceptionalism. They wanted to steal our thunder.
So we Americans cannot help but feel some ambivalence toward our singularity in the world—with its draining entanglements abroad, the selfless demands it makes on both our military and our taxpayers, and all the false charges of imperial hubris it incurs. Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.
But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.
Since the ’60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable.
America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?
As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.
Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.
Well, then. That’s going to leave a mark.
A black one.
Racist.
****
related — from a time when this site carried some small bit of weight.
’bout sums it up.
Going back and looking at the old posts from 2006, I find out just where I’ve heard the name Jazz Shaw before.
Doesn’t he now write for HotAir?
Good to know. Explains a whole lot. And speaks to the absurdist in me.
Of course, Jeff; unlike you, Shaw “dumbed it down” (he’s a Moderate, dont’cha know), to better fit in with Obama’s force for mediocrity….
Who the fuck is Jazz Shaw?
He writes for Hot Air’s Green Room.
Me, marginalized.
Just the way it goes, I guess.
we could have some fun with this: epa,education, energy et al on the chopping block.
Link
“He writes for Hot Air’s Green Room.”
he’s on the front page these days
Really, nr?
Wow.
I guess it pays off to blow with the blogospheric winds. Startling, I know.
HotAir?
Isn’t that the site where Ed pushes the Republican establishment line, “AllahPundit” pushes buttons to whore for traffic, and the least expression of discontent with the lack of quality and thought in their offerings results in an angry mob?
(Lesson learned: unless you’ve expressed your dislike of “anonymous sources” every damned time they’ve been cited, then expressing that dislike even once means you’re a hypocrite. That, and AllahPundit is second only to Ace in being a lazy dumbass.)
I watched Der Untergang for the first time last night and had an awful eerie sensation at a couple of points at the mention of “the people (volk)” deserving their destruction as a consequence of that volk’s choice, a stark “this is what you wanted, this is what you get for falling short” brutality, coupled with the frantic idiocy of decision making, and the irrational flailing in the face of observed reality. Just a momentary sensation, as I said.
I was writing detailed philosophical analysis and discussion back in 2006, while Shaw was responding with “Shorter Goldstein: ‘‘We must burn the (Iraqi) village to save the village’” And today he’s a frontpage writer on one of the biggest “right-wing” websites on the ‘net.
Is there really any wonder why I’ve stopped carrying weight on the right?
Just look at my site today: about 15 comments total on all my posts. Was a time when I got 500 on a single post.
I haven’t changed. Who’s running things has. And they are smiling all the way to the bank, each of ’em.
I don’t all that much about Hot Air. The site causes the tired old hamster operated manual adding machine tucked inside the CRT sitting on my desk to sieze up.
Is writing for the Green Room the same thing as writing for Arianna Huffington?
I’m too depressed to think. I think I’ll go watch a Sandra Bullock movie and jack off.
Untergang was a really good movie. I need to see that again sometime.
from wiki
Link
Shaw’s old website, to which I linked in the earlier piece dealing with my gloss on Shelby Steele, is no longer there.
He’s been reimagined!
Fiscal conservatism and social centrism?
Good Luck with that.
For some reason I’ve always thought J. Shaw is a woman. Not that I know anything. Just . . .
Surely you’ve got something better to jack off to than Sandra Bullock, Jeff
How do we deal with exceptionalism as a piece of ambiguous rhetoric (beyond ignoring the ambiguity, that is)?
Could be a she, sdferr. Either way.
I mean, seriously. What do we make of the fact that I can’t even get a return email from certain “big” right side blogs — and yet people like Jazz Shaw are now delivering the conservative point of view to millions of people?
I swear, there are days when I feel like what I do here is as useless as a dick on a Trekkie. Today is one of those days.
I’ve lost the vast majority of my readership. People only have so much time, and the clearing house sites are just more informative and comprehensive — and their links drive the traffic. It’s the way the market goes, I suppose, and they’ve decided to freeze me out. I just wish that those profiting weren’t erstwhile lefties who at one time not too long ago were profiting from attacking conservatives.
I’m at a loss where things come to appealing to large numbers. Heck, I don’t even appeal to small numbers, so no fucking wonder. heh
There it is: Rush is talking eros right this minute.
lowest common denominator
18 people online.
This place is so over.
Well, we could take advantage of the open space to act up, since we have the jiant to ourselves, so to speak.
What I’ve noticed about Shelby Steele? He doesn’t hold forth very often, but when he does he’s bang on the mark.
What happened to the grip of a lust for virtuous exceptionalism on the people? Did it “die” with the death of the “canon”? Or was the death much earlier, noticed by Nietzsche back when he wrote Thoughts Out of Season?
i signed up at barackyhouse.gov so they’ll tell me when their petition thing goes live. mr. jeff you might be able to get linky love by creating a petition with a 10th amendment thrust because:
“At first, a petition’s unique URL will only be known to its creator and will not show up anywhere else on WhiteHouse.gov. It’s up to that person to share it in their network to gather an initial amount of signatures — initially 150 — before it is searchable on WhiteHouse.gov. “
well exceptionalism took a hit when all the kids got trophies just for showing up.
I thought of submitting a petition to have Obama resign. I bet I could get enough signatures in a few hours.
He won’t resign. Abdicate maybe, but resign? Nah.
well exceptionalism took a hit when all the kids got trophies just for showing up.
As was pretty much predicted by De Tocqueville.
How embarrassing is it that our number got called by Frenchman when the country was barely fifty years old?
He’s already resigned. He resigned long ago. It just looks like he’s still in office because his body is there making motions signifying nothing.
Ernst, how much was Tocqueville looking at the same things as Nietzsche, albeit from another angle?
I was wondernig the same thing sdferr.
Weren’t they both aristocrats?
Aristocrats in what sense? Nietzsche, I thought, was the child of middleclass clergymen, on both sides of the family.
I meant the literal sense, but I guess I’ll have to settle for “aristocrat by temperment” in Nietzche’s case.
In any event, only a culture rank with teen spirit would have elected this fraud.
I heard the spokesman, Jay Carney, in a radio clip a few minutes ago. My reaction was something along the lines of: the fact that no-one is beating this man away from the podium with a cane for straight-out lying to the nation in the name of their own highest officer cannot be a good thing. Of course, in our world, beating anyone with a cane for any reason is taken to be a serious wrong. This has been noted elsewhere, I know — still, the flagrancy of the falsehood of the proposition isn’t diminished in the least, for on the contrary, the only way to do right in the case of Carney and men like him is to beat him within an inch of his life with a stick. Otherwise, everyone is embroiled in the evil. That, strangely enough, was the message Traudl Junge left with the audience when she cited her epiphany at Sophie Scholl’s memorial.
Hot Air? The commenters there are really weird, unlike the commenters here who are just off their rockers a bit.
In Re: Steele’s article. I think it sums up the pathetic stance of the Left, and their Trojan Horse, President Obama. Pathetic because they had this idea that doing what they proposed would really make a difference, and now that they’ve actually had the opportunity to initiate it they’re seeing the collapse of everything.
Not one darn prediction from teh Book of Marx has gone as predicted, even when the right people (aka, themselves) were running things. Must be terribly frustrating for them.
Jeff G: My two cents on all of this. Much of your work, I think, goes right over the top of others’ heads whereas Hot Air and like sites dumb it down for a lot of people.
That and we miss the absurdities. We need Shep Smith back in a flooded city, leading his tribe against a rival network’s crew. we need Billy Jack to speak again. We, me whatever.
Playfulness and absurdity is easier at a time when you don’t feel so desperate.
If Obama loses, I suspect that stuff will return. But as it stands now, I’ve been pretty well marginalized, and those who did it to me don’t have the requisite consciences to do anything more than high five each other on email or Twitter.
Holy shit! I went back and read all the comments on the last 2006 post linked. For a violent, crazed lunatic I think Jeff sure showed a hell of a lot of patience with all those stupid, stupid trolls.
I thought it was something like that.
We need a plan. A better plan than the president’s crew has. And a goal to plan towards.
Does anyone else here got any ideas? I’m rummaging around upstairs and I’m not coming up with much other than “How many lawyers does it take to prop open a door? Five.”
Seriously, that’s how many it took yesterday.
That’s what Nietzsche thought too. His was a crazy big project he never got around to finishing.
I don’t think the “difference” the left hoped to make is the same “difference” you’re attributing to them, motive-wise.
Or, to put it another way, just because the shackles are designer brand, doesn’t mean you’re not a slave.
His was a crazy big project he never got around to finishing.
Thank God.
Difference is deliberately vague because I’m starting to wonder if they actually had anything more than adolescent power fantasies and no real concept of what was going to happen. Well, for many of them. The wanna-be Stalins had a pretty good idea of what they wanted and it wasn’t adolescent at all.
But the rest? They are looking more and more like underpants gnomes every day. They sound good, but when you look closer you find that deep down they’re shallow.
Y’know Ernst, for some reason unknown to me, I think no such thing. It could be that’s on merely account N is always so interesting, stimulating, challenging or whathaveyou. It could be too though, that had he the time to work the problem longer, he may have actually arrived at some worthwhile suggestion, I don’t know. But in any case, I don’t wave him away for what he left us.
Not one darn prediction from teh Book of Marx has gone as predicted, even when the right people (aka, themselves) were running things. Must be terribly frustrating for them.
They ARE frustrated, but not because Marx failed to predict the future (including the ushering in of Utopia): they’re frustrated because they don’t have all the levers of power in their greedy little hands.
If income equality or social justice were their actual goals, they’d stop trying to achieve said goals through historically unproven methods. They’d gasp in horror at what happened in Cuba or China or the Soviet Union. They’d be given pause by European Socialism’s pending bankruptcy.
Nope. They’re frustrated because Marxism flatters them silly, telling them that they ought to be in charge because of their incandescent brilliance, but those horrible, horrible people in the Tea Party keep thwarting destiny, the beasts.
. . . merely on account, I meant to say. ‘pologies for not proofing first.
baracky a cia creation?
Link
Always nuts to read your old stuff.
I think your honest intentions really screw people over; there are gradations here that wouldn’t work at RedState.com.
PW is a free-form radio station: An early Dire Straits cut followed by Belle and Sebastian into, I don’t know, EmmyLou or maybe the Stones’ Exile deep tracks.
HotAir is classic rock: all ELO and Black Magic Woman all the time. Give them what they want so they don’t have to think twice. The familiar is comfortable, safe and sells.
I like what I like and I am picky. I like you and your site.
Say what you will, but Allah was a funny cat back then. Now, only Treacher is funny. Fortunately, he is really, really funny.
I’d write more of that stuff now, Roddy — and occasionally I still do — but back then I actually thought we were having intellectual conversations.
I was so naive. It’s almost adorable, it’s so precious.
I believe back then there were intellectual conversations happening. I don’t know why it changed. Perhaps it’s because the progressives went off the rails. Perhaps it was the response by some on the right (myself included) that it just wasn’t worth engaging them any more. Any chance of a nuanced position (not the ironic kind, but a real one) where, for instance, I liked Bush 43 because of his stance on defense and the war, but didn’t like his spending, was no longer possible because one had to either love him or hate him, according to the left and eventually those on the pragmatic right.
The fact that we allowed them to take over the narrative may have lead to their downfall. Once they were through re-defining us, they turned to re-defining themselves, and have been even more lost than before as a result.
Then again, I might be on crack again.
Whoa, there’s that word again. Spooky.
By the way, just as an aside — for those of you all interested with a highspeed internet connection, Der Untergang is available in its entirety as one big-assed (2:28:00 hr) file at YouTube
Does it have explosions and CGI? Otherwise I cannot be bothered, because I have the attention span of a gnat.
/kids these days
heh
Big assed indeed. 602 meg mp4 file.
“Just look at my site today: about 15 comments total on all my posts. Was a time when I got 500 on a single post.
Well, yesterday and the day before I commented like crazy. So…sorry, my bad.
Seriously though, there is one thing you’ve changed. Now days you’re not shy about showing asshats the door. Those 500 comment threads? Some really great stuff, but at least half of the comments were directed at trolls ignorant, repetitive assertions designed to change the subject and most importantly distract.
If it’s any consolation, what you’ve lost in volume, you’ve gained in serenity. As for the depressed part, I think we all are. These are depressing times. Someone otta come up with a good name for these kinda times we’re going through. Doesn’t even have to be great, just something simple.
I’m hoping it proves to be the Decline and Fall of the Obaman Empire.
Which is what you get when Caesar wears a turban, or something.
Turban or not turban, that is the…
*thhhhhhhwp*
…
Yeah, Jeff, I remember 2006, when I was putting bumps in my arteries dealing with thor…. I’d rather have a double orchidectomy sans anesthetic.
I read a powerful ‘modern’ lefty activist on the Twitter describing FDL’s Jane Hamsher as a relic of ‘Blogging 1.0’, and not worth wasting time on, because now things MUST BE DONE! in a well-organized (read: following the Marching Orders) manner, because those old days and ways just didn’t move the chains efficiently enough or quickly enough to suite our ‘modern’ political agendas. It’s a damned shame, but the bastard has a point; intellectual conversations just don’t move the hordes and masses the way stock posts and predictable jargon (trademarks of the clearinghouse blogs on both sides) do. Further, these ‘newer’ bloggers, activists, will not carry on conversations outside their own protected fiefdoms anymore, for fear of losing market share.
But I enjoy this site tremendously, FWIW. HotAir, Ace’s, the clearinghouses, not so much.
I kind of miss those days, but I mean honestly, how many times can you explain to tbogg that he is a nasty little panty-siffing pinhead before the novelty wears off?
Donna Brazile, doing what she can to salvage a place in the national discourse for race baiting.
I happened to catch that in real time. Mary Matalin surprised me with a solid, knowledgeable defense of Beck. Good on her.
Brazille…
There’s no foul there, Brazille. BHO’s just a man, not a damned Führer-monster. Given his ideology, insulting him is what he’s got coming. We’ve a long history in this nation of belittling our ‘leaders’; the right to do so guaranteed by the 1st Amendment; if you don’t like it you can kiss Glenn Beck’s fat ass.
Oh. The extra ‘l’ was purposefully added to insult Brazille.
Good thing no one ever insulted George W. Bush during his presidency. That would simply be uncalled-for, and beyond the realm of acceptable discourse in this country.
“Interesting”, but then I like classics.
serr8d, Leftists didn’t start the French Revolution (or any other) because they didn’t like the King; they just wanted to be the King.
Fortunately, lese majeste has never made it into the lawbooks…