Obama's Speech

I think it's a good one. Obviously, I haven't had time to work through the text in great detail (pesky job!) but here are a few preliminary thoughts on the strategies that made the speech work.

First, Obama adapts the "hourglass" structure from the Gettysburg Address. He begins broadly with the founders' constitutional moment, narrows slightly to historical struggles to realize their vision, narrows yet more to the campaign and then narrows to the moment at hand--the racial controversy sparked by Reverend Wright. The speech then begins to broaden again--back out to the context for these remarks, to the campaign, to a future rooted in the past, in that constitutional moment, with which he ends.

It's an effective strategy; like Lincoln at Gettysburg, Obama can place this moment and his campaign within the sweep of American history. Moreover, he develops a reciprocal relationship between human agency and historical change. The dead soldiers made the new birth of freedom possible, yet their sacrifice would be in vain if a society dedicated to that principle did not exist. The "improbable experiment" Obama identifies is more than any of us, yet it requires us to move at critical moments. Narrow and broaden, from the human to the society and back again.

Second, the hourglass structure is complemented by the march/path metaphors that characterize the speech. The "improbable experiment" was "stained" (Cain and Abel?) at the Founding by slavery, yet it formed a union "that could and should be perfected over time." And so we "continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America." Two-thirds of the way through that speech, he realizes the metaphor by identifying the "profound mistake" of Reverend Wright: "he spoke as if our society was static....But what we know--what we have seen--is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation." The change he seeks, then, moves along "the path to a more perfect union." The movement metaphors strongly echo Dr. King's words, particularly at Riverside Church and in "I Have A Dream." Neither the Constitution nor the experiment is static; we move for an (im)possible goal--to perfect an (im)perfect union.

Third, the last section of the speech echos another historical figure. On the night of King's death, Robert Kennedy thought it "well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in." We could be "filled with bitterness, and with hatred...we can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization" or we could "make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand, and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion, and love." Similarly, Obama outlines the "racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years," represented, at least implicitly, by Ferraro and Wright. As a result, we "have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division (RFK: "What we need in the United States in not division"), and conflict, and cynicism. . . .Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'" Obviously, both want us to take that second path, to, in the logic of American civil religion, fetch good out of evil.

Finally, Obama's doing something in his discourse that I'm still trying to figure out, but that I think is quite important. All of these strategies seem to work together to get to this: He accepts the universalizing tenets of the American liberal tradition--we are all citizens, holding our rights by the hand of God, all capable of changing the world, all held to the standards of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence--while at the same time, he historicizes and roots people's specific experiences in their specific histories. The Reverend Wright and white working class Americans hold the views they do because of the specifics of their lives and experiences--and that's understandable. At the same time, we strive for something more, to break those bonds and move forward along a path lit by those liberal principles. It's an interesting dynamic--at once universal and specific, timeless yet rooted in place, space, and history. It's an important move in American rhetoric.

That should certainly be enough for now. Love to hear your comments.

Comments

[V]

It is this last bit that struck me immediately after hearing and reading the speech: the "that's understandable" gesture you mention. I can't think of another text in which a presidential candidate or president (1) acknowledged that such resentments, too, are part of American life and (2) made these resentments seem so, um, reasonable. Bill Clinton did some of the first, I know, but Obama seems to go far beyond Clinton here. You're the Clinton guy; what compares from his playbook?

Yet we can't just stop after acknowledging these resentments, or at least we can't make that choice, says Obama, in a moment that reads to me a bit more like president-as-benevolent-father than presidential candidate. We owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to Ashley, to become compassionate and then turn that compassion into action. I agree that this speech owes much of its success to carefully crafted balances between the tensions you mention (compulsions of civil religion vs. particulars of history, creed vs. deeds, etc.). And even though I'm no Burkean, I can also see a powerful balancing between those classic pentad parts, esp. agent, agency, and scene.

On a much more pragmatic note, the other thing that seems likely to me is that the Obama campaign has had sections of this speech "in the can" for a while now. I suspect that they had a different plan for when and where to go public with this message, but exigence is what it is, and so we have it on March 18 as opposed to, say, September 18 on some college campus. Don't you just know that some 24-year-old speechwriter has been working on this for months?

And one last thing: Is it just me, or is there some foreshadowing of Edwards as potential running mate here? Does Obama always talk about those shut-down mills?