The Morning After—with a Nod to Vince Lombardi

I will make this brief as a follow-up to the much longer and perhaps somewhat brooding post below. The results are in. Barack Obama is president. I just came back from Chicago, where they were all celebrating. It is a giddy feeling. President-elect Obama gave a victory speech last night worthy of even the best moments of John F. Kennedy. I doubt that anyone who really reads this blog isn’t celebrating as well, but we must forget that we are not the whole country. We are the intelligentsia; we are not the world. Not all of America, not all of the world. Obama had the wisdom to recognize, and acknowledge, that fact in a powerful way. That is most hopeful. I myself believe Obama himself will be a real leader, but leaders can only lead when those who are led also are willing to rise to the best that not only their leaders demand of them, but that they demand of themselves. “Change” has been the mantra for eighteen months. Change has now happened. But the world is changing faster. The euphoria and the well-wishing and the hopefulness will evaporate very quickly. We must remember that George Bush himself had a 90 percent approval rating right after September 11, 2001. And Obama only received about the same percentage of the popular vote as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan did when they were first elected.

It is time that we all put aside whatever fantasies we have about what our leaders can do for us, and start thinking hard about what we need to do for ourselves, in spite of ourselves, and as work on ourselves so that our new leader can truly lead. My last post reminded us of the truly dark side of ourselves on all sides that we have seen in this election. It is time we stop blaming “them” for things that don’t go right and begin to try to understand what we’re all up against. For example, many of us blithely assumed that the McNasties of the world might also welcome the victory of someone who said he was willing to talk with anyone and hear their point of view - I’m thinking of Russia and Iran - but this morning public statements from both those regimes seemed even more menacing than they had been toward George W. Bush. We can’t blame Bush any longer, nor capitalism - whatever is left of it - nor the Democrats nor the Republicans nor the liberals nor the conservatives. We’ve got to take a hard and nuanced look at ourselves and our situation.

We have, to paraphrase and somewhat distort Nietzsche, set sail on a vast and stormy ocean of what we call the “global era” in a small and fairly fragile boat. It won’t be too long before a big wave hits, and then what? Are we quickly disillusioned, or do we in our own way remind ourselves of the famous saying of Vince Lombardi - “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.”

We’re jubilant now, because postive change, or at least the semblance of it, seems to have happened. But what happens when the change is negative, or perhaps catastrophic? Do we find another scapegoat, especially our new leader, or do we assume - ridiculously - that the big wave won’t hit. Of course it will. Or do we cry out “all hands on deck” and tackle the storm together?

It wasn’t even 8 a.m. before the sky was flashing.