Achieving Our Country

We have long known that Obama was a pragmatist in the lay sense–a practical politician, someone interested in getting the job done. Cass Sunstein classed up this line of thought when he dubbed Obama a visionary minimalist.

But last Tuesday’s measured, moving inauguration speech made me wonder whether Obama isn’t also a pragmatist in the more technical sense: a proponent of the American philosophical tradition pioneered by C.S. Peirce and Williams James. I think he is; and I think this might be precisely what is making some pundits angry.

Obama has had more hope and anxiety heaped on his shoulders than perhaps any person in history; so it was only fitting that hordes of pundits looked forward to the inaugural address with zealous anticipation. One found, in those inaugural preview articles, the phrase “soaring rhetoric” repeated endlessly. Well, the soar-seekers were bound to be disappointed, and disappointed they were.

As Obama would say, their memories are short. Soaring rhetoric is to inaugural addresses as long, dark hallways are to horror movies. Soaring rhetoric can be stirring or turgid, meritorious or meretricious, but in and of itself it is no achievement. The longest, purplest inaugural speeches in history are also some of the worst. Obama’s address was not only appropriately austere; it was also well-crafted, if understated, writing.

Every inaugural address says more or less the same thing, so the differences between them are bound to be subtle. No new president praises corruption and partisan bickering; each one vows to bring the country together, to move forward. The only question is, “How, Mr. President, do you propose to do this?” This where Obama’s pragmatism comes in.

Those who would paraphrase the thrust of pragmatism in four words often proffer these four: “truth is what works.” Now, no century of discourse is reducible to a phrase; but as reductions go, it’s not bad.

For our purposes, though, I’m less interested in how pragmatists define “truth” or “knowledge,” and more interested in the methods pragmatists use. In short, rather than adding more evidence to their side of the debate, pragmatists (at least modern ones) seek to change the terms of the debate altogether. This is just what Obama has begun doing, starting with the first speech of his administration. Where other politicians have fought back against their opponents, Obama simply replaces the old agenda with his own. This is what the famous postmodern pragmatist Richard Rorty called “changing the vocabulary.” Or, as the even more famous pragmatist Jay-Z put it, “I’m not looking at you dudes, I’m looking past you.”

Here is Rorty, in a 2004 essay called “The Quest for Uncertainty”: 

Interesting philosophy is rarely an examination of the pros and cons of a thesis. Usually it is, implicitly or explicitly, a contest between an entrenched vocabulary which has become a nuisance and a half-formed new vocabulary which vaguely promises great things. The latter “method” of philosophy…is to redescribe lots and lots of things in new ways, until you have created a pattern of linguistic behavior which will tempt the rising generation to adopt it.

Replace “philosophy” with “politics” and you’ll see what I mean.

Americans are used to politics as pugilism. We move forward by beating our opponents back. This is what it is to be a Bush or a Clinton: to valiantly carry the banner of one of two entrenched vocabularies.

As Andrew Sullivan argued way back when, “Unlike any of the other candidates, [Obama] could take America—finally—past the debilitating, self-perpetuating family quarrel of the Baby Boom generation that has long engulfed all of us.” It was hardly surprising that the McCain campaign, with its Wright and Ayers mudslinging, tried to drag the race back into the debilitating quarrel; what was remarkable was that it didn’t work.

America asked for big changes. They might just now be realizing how big the changes will be. Obama does not merely represent a new way forward because of how he looks. Reinvention, creative minimalism — that’s how his brain works. He is striking forward, performatively, actively, by forming a new political vocabulary as he goes. It will probably happen in fits and starts, and might not always look safe or “soaring,” but it just might be the only way to truly change “the tone in Washington” (read: the Washington vocabulary). We asked for a postmodern philosopher-king, and we got one.