Hope and the universality of human imperfection

'WE THE people, in order to form a more perfect union. . ." So begins the US Constitution, and so began Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia last week. Those remarks sparked such positive and negative consternation because they broke the cardinal rule of political rhetoric, lifting up a question that can be answered only by a deeper question. Obama's subject was nothing less than the American paradox: The people who long for perfection are themselves imperfect.

Those are the opening words of a reflection upon Obama's speech, in a column by James Carroll whose title is the same as that of this diary.  I urge in the strongest terms possible that you read it.  NOW.   Before you go on to read the rest of the diary.  Because there is little of value I can add to what Carroll has to say.
Now, aren't you glad you read Carroll before coming here?  What?  You didn't?  Then I will have to convince you.

Carroll places our imperfection first in the context of racism, and in the responses of Jeremiah Wright to that imperfection of our society, while warning us not to be misled, because the underlying imperfections of our society outweigh any we find in responses to those:

People who benefit from an imperfect power structure speak warmly of love, while those who suffer from it angrily demand justice.

He goes on to ask a basic question. Given our human imperfection and thus the imperfection of any society and of those who as citizens comprise it, how do we each deal

with the inevitable complicity of our leadership - our preachers, our politicians - in what ails society? How do we deal with our own complicity?

One answer has been denial.

Carroll then uses the sexual transgressions of the two most recent Governors of New York, and even while acknowledging that Paterson's open admission renders moot some levels of criticism, yet he too will have to

lead with a public persona that will surely contradict the private truth of a flawed person. Spitzer's fate notwithstanding, a certain hypocrisy comes with politics.

That hypocrisy ultimately comes from us, from our expectations that our leaders will somehow be better than us ordinary citizens, because

Society invests its hope in the superiority of rulers, elevates them to status from which they exercise power over those who are deemed less worthy. But whether such power is seized or granted, this pattern has led to terrible abuses throughout history.

By now I should have convinced you of the power of this column, and how little of value I have to add to his words.  Perhaps now I can remind you as Barack Obama reminds us that he is not a perfect man, that he has not run a perfect campaign, and will not be a perfect president.  That is of a piece with Carroll has to say, for that is also the genius of the American political system.  Carroll warns us that the expectation that our political leaders are somehow better than use inevitably leads to abuses, to a movement towards totalitarianism:

Every command society assumes that some individual - or some collective - is capable of perfection, while the mass of ordinary people are not.

Carroll uses the Constitutional convention as focal point, because of the words with which Obama begins his speech, and the title he applies to the speech.  Carroll states bluntly

The ingenious American framers took for granted the universality of human imperfection. The Constitution is a system of checks and balances because every officeholder in government - from president, to judge, to legislator - is assumed to be flawed. Every power center - from state to federal - is capable of abusing power.

If you are still reading me, and have not yet read all of Carroll, shame on you.  You force me to quote his conclusion, including its set up, and thus its connection with Obama.  And I will empahsize (using boldthe first and last two sentences of what I now quote:

Constitutional democracy, even balancing majority rule with protections for minorities, is the political system that came into being when humans stopped pretending that perfection was possible. The American paradox is that this rejection of utopian ambition is the beginning of authentic political equality.

Barack Obama acknowledges the imperfections of his friend and mentor, Jeremiah Wright, but he simultaneously shows how they are rooted in the imperfections of American history.

By daring to explain himself so forthrightly, Obama has submitted to the checks and balances, too. He not only speaks of American hope. He embodies it.

Now, even if you have not read all of Carroll (for which I will forgive you if you will yet do so), perhaps you see why I think this column is so important.  It puts the speech in a much broader context than Obama defending himself politically with respect to Jeremiah Wright.  It goes beyond reading the speech as a noble challenge to the American people about our continuing problems with racism, even if many of such analyses also recognize that Obama in the speech also spoke about the fears and aspirations of working class whites.  It is beyond even the idea that Obama treats us as adults, giving us complete and somewhat complex ideas with which to wrestle.  

Carroll sees the historical context in which one can not only understand the imperfections of a Jeremiah Wright or of those who react so negatively to Wright's expressions taken out of context.  He acknowledges the very imperfections of American History, the thing that far too many of us failed to adequately address in our education, even as our Founding Fathers recognized the inevitable nature of political failure because politics involved imperfect human beings, who themselves would at times transgress, fail, demonstrate their imperfections.  Which is why they gave us a system of laws and not of men.  Which is also why they provided for being able to formally change the system through amending the Constitution, something to which they had to commit themselves in order to get that document ratified by the requisite 9 states.  Thus they proposed 12 changes, of which ten were immediately accepted and became our Bill of Rights, and one more finally some two centuries later became the 27th Amendment.   They knew they were imperfect, and attempted to give us a governmental system that could function despite our cumulative imperfections.

The genius of Obama is as Carroll puts it.  Perhaps it is his experience of having grown up hapa. as the Hawai'ians say, "half,", mixed, and able to see the imperfections of both black and white.  I his speech even as he acknowledged the causes of the anger felt by the generation of which Jeremiah Wright was a part, he reminded Blacks of their own responsibility, of their need not be defined solely by that experience to the loss of the hope that change was possible.  Perhaps it is his experience of of community organizing, where to be successful one ust take the time to listen to the hopes and the fears, the disappointments and the aspirations, of the community with which you work, because they will only succeed in change when they are ready to take ownership and responsibility for their lives:  then the come together in a force that is powerful enough to require response from those in power, and even to assume the powers of government from which some levels of change can be effected.  First they have to commit to changing themselves.  Only then will meaningful political and societal change take place.

Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence borrowed from John Locke, but he substituted a different construction from Locke's use of property as one of the rights that were basic to the human condition.   I often tease my students that "the pursuit of happiness" means they could never be happy, only that they were allowed to chase after their dreams.   But in my teasing is a recognition that parallels Carroll's column.  We need to be reminded that we will never achieve final perfection, that we need to recognize our limits even as we strive to overcome them.  Our Founders were correct in using the term "more perfect union" rather than "a perfect union."  Life on all levels is a process.  We can always do better, as individuals and as a society.  And because it is "we the people" who bear this responsibility, we need leaders who do not pretend that they will do it all for us, but who can encourage and provoke us to our share of the responsibility.  Perhaps this is why it is not "just words."  This is why the ability of a leader to use words to inspire and provoke us, to reflect back upon us our aspirations in a way that reminds us that WE can do better, but that we also will from time to fail and yet cannot let those failures intimidate and dissuade us.

I was not originally an Obama supporter.   As I have noted elsewhere, he is the fifth to whom I have attached my own hopes and aspirations this cycle.  And while I have understood parts of his appeal, now having read Carroll I think I understand more completely.  I think of the man who I his first book openly discusses his failings, some of which have been already used against him, such as his acknowledgment of his own drug use many years ago.  And his insistence to us that he is not perfect should be the counter to any who claim a cult of Obama, because that is certainly not what he seeks, and I don't think it is what engenders the response he gets.  

As a teacher I know that if I am in any way artificial with my students they will call me on it: adolescents have terrific bullshit detectors, and if they either trust you or do not respect you they will call you on it.  I prefer that it be from a condition of trust, because in my own imperfections I do need to be reminded when I am full of myself, or blowing smoke.  My sense observing this campaign is not just that Obama is speaking to the political and societal challenges in which we find ourselves, he is doing more.  In his words, his actions, himself, he holds up a mirror to us, enabling us to see the possibilities of moving towards something "more perfect."  It is audacious, as Jeremiah Wright taught him, and that is the very nature of hope, without which we shrivel and become small in our aspirations if we do not completely abandon them.  That applies to us as individuals, and to what we can expect of our society and our government.  And it applies to how our nations should act with other nations.  With audacity.  With hope.

Let me conclude with Carroll, repeating what I have already quoted.  I think he has helped me understand more fully about Obama, who is neither a perfect man nor a perfect candidate, which since he acknowledges it is a major part of his appeal.

By daring to explain himself so forthrightly, Obama has submitted to the checks and balances, too. He not only speaks of American hope. He embodies it.

Peace.  

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