Recently, the Ashbrook Center put out a podcast between Drs. Schramm and Sikkenga talking about Obama's inaugural speech. Sikkenga was very thoughtful, as always, telling about how he concieves Obama's understanding of America.
As a man without a race, Obama essentially diverges with the Founders' belief in individual rights, because you cannot understand human beings outside of groups. He doesn't abandon Founding principles, but just thinks that they don't belong to each citizen by himself, rather they are 'our' rights.
It requires a knowledge of Obama's background to understand why -- the guy was essentially 'raceless' in his early life. Basically, Obama had to decide to be black. This kind of identity doesn't limit who somebody is, but is an essential part of who they are.
Obama is a very smart guy, and it sounds like his idea of America draws from a deep-seated philosophy of man. The new administration is ushering in not only policy change, but a change in American politics as we know it from Washington and Jefferson. Policy change is just sort of the icing on the cake. 'Fixing' the deeper meaning of politics - how to live well - is Obama's biggest task.
But haven't people lived well with absolutely nobody around them? Isn't solitude good? And aren't there deep differences between human beings collectively vs. individually? This may be completely wrong, but it all sounds a little like Rousseau - according to Obama, all of us together have a 'general will.' This isn't self-interest -- what's good for you or for me as individuals -- but what is good for America itself.
I really wish I was a lot better at political philosophy and could explain all of the implications of this, but God, it's sort of scary. Obama makes a lot of assumptions about mankind here -- these are serious considerations. We're not talking about something silly and meaningless like European socialism, but, and I'm stealing from Sikkenga, some 'wisdom' Obama has gotten about 'man' and wants to teach to all of us.
I'd really like to get some conversation going on this -- if any of you actually read here, take ten minutes and listen to Sikkenga's talk. Think about it for a while, and comment about what you think it means for our next 4 years.
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