Our Pragmatic President

By: Thomas Reese

June 9, 2009

It is obvious to everyone that President Obama is trying to make fundamental changes in public policy dealing with the economy, health care, education, energy, the environment and government regulation. What is not so obvious is that he is also trying to change the way Americans look at reality.

Faced with the complexity of life, we make sense of reality using theories and ideologies that simplify the world so that we can respond quickly. Much of this comes from the common sense we learn from our parents, and the cultural myths we pick up from fairy tales and, more commonly today, from movies and TV. This works fine until our common sense, theories or ideologies fail the test of experience. Then we must either rethink our theories or face continued failure.

Many of our theories and ideologies have failed the test of experience: The belief that investors and consumers in the marketplace will make rational decisions; the belief that Americans are smarter, harder working and more innovative than any other people; the belief that the resources of the world can be exploited without limits; the belief that the U.S. military can easily defeat any enemy with its military might; the belief that the paradigmatic metaphor of life is either sports or war, which requires that opponents be squashed; the belief that anyone who disagrees with us is evil or stupid; the belief that those who are different from us cannot be trusted.

Obama is too smart and too American to challenge these myths head on because they are at the core of who we are as a nation. But when he refuses to talk about the "War on Terror," or when he talks about seeking "Common Ground," he is in fact rejecting the sports and war paradigms that rule American life. Dialogue, negotiations, and listening are not words you hear on the battle field or in sports.

On the campaign trail, at Notre Dame and at Cairo, Obama spoke the language of reconciliation, bipartisanship, dialogue and common ground. This is not a black and white world of good guys and bad guys.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think Obama is a wimpy nerd. He is enough of a basketball player to make the shot that wins the game. But he is also a pragmatist who recognizes when old theories and ideologies don't produce results.

His challenging of these American myths, even if he does it unconsciously or indirectly, may be why the reaction of his opponents is so violent. He is asking America to think outside the box, outside our preconceived notions of reality. That can be unsettling. But it is the only way to find solutions when the old theories fail.

Opens in a new window