Obama’s gamble on complexity
Because I’m on the road I didn’t get to listen to Obama’s Tuesday speech until last night. I’d heard a mixture of reactions to it already — from one friend’s “best political speech of my lifetime” to another’s “not sure he put the controversy to rest.”
So I fired up the browser and tuned in.
First thing I realized: this is one lengthy piece of substantive political argument! After two terms of an incoherent chief executive and a couple decades of soundbite-driven political culture, it felt anachronistic yet oddly invigorating to settle in and realize that I was in for nearly 40 minutes of a well-constructed speech with a long sweep. Obama did not, as Dave Winer put it, “take the shortcuts.” The high road is also, sometimes, a long road.
Second thing I realized: Obama is not only a “great speaker” in the sense that his voice can soar and he can fire up a crowd; he is also able to summon more than one effective style. For most of this speech on race, he ditched the grand oratory and hit calm, somewhat informal, conversational notes: he was like your incredibly articulate friend across a dinner table, going deep into a political argument by increasingly personal anecdotes, gradually getting more passionate as the minutes pass.
Finally, I realized that the speech was a big gamble. As Jay Rosen wrote, it was a challenge to the media — a gauntlet thrown down at the cable networks’ reductive, infinite-loop approach to complex issues. But it was even more a challenge to his audience, to all of us, to listen with less impatience, to think for one moment a little less about the short strokes of one presidential race and a little more about the long arc of our national story.
In substance the speech was deeply pragmatic: It called on the groups that make up the American polis to stop objectifying one another because that simply distracts us from our opportunity to solve some big problems. That’s a practical argument: stop fighting because we’ve got work to do.
The speech’s idealism lay rather on a kind of meta level. In its length, its willingness to delve into history, its plea for us to embrace the complexities of our present conflicts by understanding their roots, it implicitly rejected the dominant mode of American political discourse since Ronald Reagan transformed it in 1980. Yes, Obama’s speech contained anecdotes. Yes, it contained soundbites. But these were the building blocks of something larger and more consequential.
Yes, Obama told us, we can have a political conversation informed by intelligence and nuance and a sense of history. We are not doomed to live forever in the Bush administration’s universe of stunted understanding, or the cable networks’ academy of closed minds.
Is he right? Will his gamble pay off? I’d like to think so. But it might be the most audacious hope of all.
UPDATE: Nick Kristof in the Times starts off with the same point — calling the speech “an acknowledgment of complexity, nuance and legitimate grievances on many sides” — before veering off in a different direction. (Hadn’t read him before I wrote this…)
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March 20th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Just make sure you vote for the guy and don’t second guess yourselves when the d-day comes.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:17 am
With regard to your friend’s ““not sure he put the controversy to rest.” observation – that is something that I have heard echoed by a lot of media folk, Clinton people, and McCain supporters. I think the real dramatic point to be made her is that it didn’t seem like he wanted to put the controversy to rest… he wanted to open it up, unpack every little piece of guilt, prejudice, and racial misunderstanding that had gotten packed into it in the first place. That is what I found to be so refreshing about the speech… he didn’t run from Wright like every other politician in America would have… he invited us to talk it out. That’s a nice change of pace.
March 20th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I think he will need to repeat this speech – or something like it – many more times. This was a great speech for all the reasons you say, but as a one-timer it won’t make the Reverend Wright problem go away – or at least into go away enough – especially for when he is up against McCain.
At first is was completely demoralized by the Wright remarks. Now I think this could be an opportunity for Obama to push the envelope and show us more of what makes him great.
If he stops at this one speech – big mistake. If he can keep talking to us about this issue, his greatness will increase.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I was deeply offended by his speech. History won’t be kind to this speech because the seeds of the future generation are already here and he’s trying to undo the work that countless people around the world have done to put hate behind us. For Obama to defend his pastor is reprehensible (and rejecting the words do less than nothing). Hate can never be justified. The good of Wright can never negate the hate. And that’s something that Obama just doesn’t get but that most people implicitly understand. He just told people that hate is ok if you do some good to counter it (which is impossible). This had nothing to do with race. It was the only thing he could do because if he distanced himself from Wright, no one would believe it cuz of the 20 years he’s been there (not to mention risk losing his base).
Please tell this guy to shut up before more people around the world start believing that defending hatred is ok. And why wasn’t he taught this basic principle in school like I was?
March 20th, 2008 at 10:44 am
You just slapped some bologna into Ashley’s mustard and relish sandwich. [Hint: read that anecdote at the wrap of the speech very carefully with blinders off.]
Now just pour a tall glass of Grape Kool-Aid and kick back.
March 20th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
It was a great speech and his supporters will love it, but will it assuage the doubts of the undecided? What I fear is people may second guess what others may think of it, assume they are not capable of this level of thought, and decline to support him for this reason. That would be sad, but given our history of electoral campaigns, hardly surprising.
March 20th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Here’s an interesting argument on your complexity point, Scott. Obama and the Decline of the Soundbite
“I’m sure millions of people watched clips from Obama’s remarks on the network evening news. But millions more are experiencing the speech outside the mainstream media. They’re reading, watching, and listening to this speech in full, then discussing it and sharing it. The evening news is still important, and the cable shows still matter. But the filters are no doubt becoming less important, and that in turn means that the soundbite might lose some of its stranglehold on political communications.”
And here’s Jon Stewart on TV news not listening well to what Obama meant. Some of it hysterically apt.
Thanks for this post, Scott.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:33 pm
[...] Obama’s gamble on complexity [...]
May 8th, 2008 at 9:00 am
Obama is the political path to lead the USA to the complexity of XXIst century The question is if his sophisticated communication can reach the most uneducated and conservative composants of the US population.
May 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Clearly Reverend Wright hates America. He preaches hate. Why though? It’s doubtful that this started recently. What else has he been saying for the last 20 years? What else will Obama have to cover up in the next 2 months?