Ghost of a flea: White man's burden, redux

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October 06, 2008

White man's burden, redux

Michael Knox Beran describes charismatic figures as men who are not only attractive but regarded as healers of wounds and alleviators of pain by their followers. Barack Obama, shaman, affects just such a pose by virtue of a post-masculine charisma.

Obama’s charisma is tuned to the mood of the moment. The charisma of American political leaders has typically rested on images of unflinching strength and masculine authority: Teddy Roosevelt in the North Dakota Badlands; Kennedy, the naval hero whose sexual prowess was acknowledged even in his Secret Service code name (“Lancer”); Reagan, the man on horseback whom the Secret Service called “Rawhide.” Obama’s charisma, by contrast, is closer to what critic Camille Paglia has identified with today’s television talk-show culture, in which admissions of weakness are offered as proof of empathetic qualities. Talk-show culture is occupied with the question of why we feel so bad, when it is our right under the liberal dispensation to feel eternally good. The man who would succeed in such a culture must appear to sympathize with these obscure hurts; he must take pains, Paglia writes in Sexual Personae, to appear an “androgyne, the nurturant male or male mother.”

Both revolting and accurate.

If I understand correctly, progressives believe certain folks attack the United States (and the British and the Jews) because the United States is not well liked. Ergo, the fix is not to bomb things into smithereens or, worse yet, make unkind observations about anyone's behaviour -- this only compounds the problem -- but to make everyone sympathize with the United States again. You know, like the French did immediately after 9/11. "Carpet bombing", invading and occupying other countries is, from this point of view, the reason for international disdain and by extension the reason America deserves to be attacked. I have said it before and will most likely do so again: The left believes the invasion of Iraq caused 9/11.

Strangely, the left never offers the same advice to the Arabs, the Persians, the Chinese, the aforementioned French or indeed to any Muslims regardless of their specific culture, nationality or ethnicity. These are communities who can do just as they please free from the obligation of being well liked. Such is the racism of low expectations. The courtesy is not extended to the wrong social groups in the West. To the left, the wogs start at Watford Junction or your local equivalent; wherever the metropolis ends and the provinces -- or flyover country -- begins.

If you read this blog chances are you can see the problem with this sort of thinking. All that international sympathy as the incinerated and their paper work settled in the cold waters of the Atlantic off Long Island was insufficient to dissuading the attack in the first place. And all that contempt for the working class of the West (and the South and anyone who enjoys NASCAR and anyone who volunteered for military service, etc. etc.). sits uneasily with the left's claim to represent working people and their interests. The pretzel logic of "false consciousness" somehow never applies to their own deeply-held, unquestioned and ostensibly unquestionable assumptions. Of course, it wouldn't.

For all I am not an American citizen (yet), I have a message for Barack Obama and any charismatic healer to follow him. We are not perfect and in this imperfect world we are not perfectible. If you want my cynicism you will have to take it from my cold dead hands.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at October 6, 2008 07:14 AM

Comments

Don't count yourself out just 'cause you don't hold the citizenship. As you know, it's a question of where your soul is.

Posted by: Clayton Barnett at October 6, 2008 01:35 PM

(Muffled laugh.)

Perhaps its my cynicism that defines me.
.

Posted by: OregonGuy at October 6, 2008 06:10 PM

Ghost of a flea

October 06, 2008

White man's burden, redux

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