Nietzsche and Obama - Essay Example

NIETZSCHE and OBAMA What would Friedrich Nietzsche think of the man Americans recently elected to be their new president? The question is an intriguing one, especially because Barack Obama is in a way a New Man, a politician unlike any other in American history. He comes from an unusual, cosmopolitan background—a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya, and he has been raised in Hawaii and Indonesia—but also because he has come out of nowhere and seized the presidency in some ways by sheer will. Nietzsche, seen as a conservative, would probably be of two minds about Obama. First he would be pleased by Obama’s affirmative rhetoric and ubermensch-like qualities. These life-affirming, strong man qualities are attractive to conservatives. But, he would also be very wary of Obama’s messianic aspect and might also be inclined to consider him an idol, which Nietzsche believed was a bad thing. Conservatives by their very nature are wary of big, revolutionary changes. This essay will explore these distinct possibilities with reference to the great German philosopher’s works. When Barack Obama was declared the winner of the 2008 Presidential election the world erupted. According to reporters in Germany and the United Kingdom (just two examples), people cheered and wept in the streets. “They said it was impossible,” many people said.1 It was a remarkable event for a country that had been for so long torn between races that people had despaired of any possible unification or justice. But Obama, who is half white and half black, used a highly honed and skilled political message to bring people together. At the 2004 Democratic convention which nominated John Kerry, Obama not yet even a senator gave the keynote speech. “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we dont like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people,” he said, to a roaring crowd. By crafting a powerful speech based on the founding motto of E Pluribus Unum, Obama asked people to dare to dream of a more perfect country that had moved beyond the crime of slavery and injustice of those who stood against the civil rights movement. Where African-American politicians who aspired to high office, in particular Jesse Jackson, had sounded accusatory and even divisive in their campaigns, Obama understood that to bring white working class voters onto his side he would need to welcome them as opposed to make them feel bad about themselves. This is exactly what Nietzsche said of the ubermensch or superman, that he must embody is own justification. This individual is a hero who seeks out competition so as to make himself stronger.2 One can easily see Obama doing this by facing down his primary opponent Hilary Clinton. In an epic battle that lasted months and months against a highly-experienced and well-financed Clinton campaign, Obama won small victory after small victory, hardening himself, and dealing with his weaknesses far in advance of a general election campaign. From a conservative perspective, a politician who works hard and is tested by fire is infinitely more appealing than one who feels that they are entitled to the position because of their family name or background. Then there is the way Obama has dealt with his enemies and friends both before the election and after it. As Nietzsche writes in the forward to Ecce Homo: “The man of knowledge must be able to love his enemies and also to hate his friends.”3 We can see fine examples of this in March when he was forced to renounce the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had made many incendiary statements including blaming American foreign policy for the terrorist attacked on September 11, 2001, and also for a video of a sermon in which he chants, “Goddamn America!” Rev. Wright was Obama’s personal pastor and had even presided over the marriage of Obama and his wife. Obama looked hard in the mirror and finally condemned his old friend. It was the right thing to do, but it must have been very hard. Likewise we can see in recent days how he has reached out to rivals and enemies and embraced them. It is looking very likely that Hillary Clinton, his great rival for the Democratic nomination, will become Secretary of State. Likewise, it is very probable that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a Republican, who has been Bush’s second Defense Secretary, will be kept on in the role. This is smart cabinet-making and shows the flexibility and objectivity that Nietzsche would say are required of great men. From a conservative point of view, a meritocracy is much preferable to a system of patronage. But while Nietzsche is famous for celebrating qualities of greatness that would allow a new group of men to overcome themselves and their previous limitations, he also recognized there would be imposters and a tendency among the masses to worship those who appeared to be great without actually being great. He was concerned that these people would foist a revolution on the people that no one was ready for, a very unconservative idea. As he wrote in The Genealogy of Morals, “The direction of power is often conditioned by the state of the period in which the great man happens to be born; and this fact brings about the superstition that he is the expression of his time . . . public opinion always worships the herd instinct . . .”4 While there are many who look to Obama’s victory as the emergence of an individual sui generis whose tactics and triumphs are wholly new, there are others who look to an article in the New Yorker about Obama’s rise through the rough politics of Chicago.5 This article, published in the last few months of the presidential campaign, revealed a thoroughly orthodox politician, who would use any trick in the book to gain a political foot up. Similarly, Obama’s political tactics against Clinton and McCain were innovative only in so far as the way they so proficiently extended traditional tactics. Was it heroic for Obama to refuse federal funding so that he could amass a $600 million war chest? If people were complaining about the role of money in contemporary politics before Obama, they have even more reason to complain now. The 2012 campaign will be even more awash in cash, as Obama—the greatest political fundraiser in history—again extends his tactics. Obama’s great accomplishment was to gloss over just how traditional a campaigner he was and make himself appear to be something utterly new. While there were certainly elements of novelty to his campaign—the first half African-American candidate for a major party—there were other elements that were strikingly old-fashioned: Obama is an Ivy-league lawyer, he owns a million-dollar-plus house, he has a traditional family, he comes out of a major American city, etc. His biography can be read both ways—one way as a novelty and one as a traditional. It was Obama’s great coup to exploit this difference. Then there is the reaction his campaign elicited throughout the world. There is the rally in Berlin at which 200,000 people attended. This especially would have piqued Nietzsche’s interest. He would have said that the cult of the hero showed a desire to return to religious times. In his study of the great philosopher, Thiele writes: Nietzsche was concerned that he not be identified with those who erected and worshipped golden calves in the place of forgotten gods. Among the idols he hoped to destroy were all those that bore the stamp of divine mimicry. This was not to reject his devotion to the creation of the cultural conditions necessary for the emergence of great men, or his belief that the goal of culture was contained in its highest exemplars. The truly heroic culture, however, produces great men in order to surpass them.6 It reminds one of the stage set up for Obama’s nomination speech at the Democratic convention in August 2008. It was described by Reuters, among many other journalism outlets, as an “elaborate columned stage resembling a miniature Greek temple.”7 This quickly elicited mockery from the Republican party. “Its only appropriate that Barack Obama would descend down from the heavens and spend a little time with us mere mortals when accepting the Democratic nomination,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz.8 This was a familiar political attack on Obama, that the adulation inspired in his followers was similar to that of a messiah. The Republicans did what they could to play this up. The only difference between their take on the subject and Nietzsche’s, is that they believed in God and felt Obama was usurping the divine, while Nietzsche did not believe in God and had contempt for those who imitated his ways, trying to inspire belief in the weak-minded. Barack Obama has already proven himself to be an important historical figure, and no doubt if Friedrich Nietzsche were still alive he would have much to say about him. Nietzsche would probably at first be of two minds: he would be attracted to the President Elect’s dynamism and affirmative rhetoric at first, but he would also be concerned that Obama was leading people on and was nothing more than an impostor. From the point of view of a sceptic or conservative, it is unlikely Nietzsche would buy everything Obama was selling. Bibliography Chu, Henry. “World Reaction to Obama’s victory.” LA Times. November 6, 2008. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-worldreax6-2008nov06,0,940816,full.story Lizza, Ryan. “Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama.” The New Yorker. July 21, 2008. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ecce Homo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Genealogy of Morals. ed. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage, 1967. Olshan, Jeremy. “Temple of Dem on Mount O-Lympis.” New York Post. August 28, 2008. http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282008/news/nationalnews/temple_of_dem_on_mt__o_lympus_126450.htm Thiele, Leslie Paul. Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. “Obama Speech Stage Resembles Ancient Greek Temple.” Reuters. August 26, 2008.http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=5660266 Read More