new review - The Audacity of Hope
Author:
Barak Obama
Publisher:
RH Audio
Date of Publication:
2006
ISBN:
0739334085
Rating:
7
Summary:
In the interest of informing myself about the current political candidates, I picked up this book by Democratic front runner, Barak Obama. I’d heard a lot about him but wanted to get to know his views a little better. I think this book does a pretty good job of introducing him as a candidate.
The book covers a variety of things. First, it talks about how he got into politics. Senator Obama started out as a community organizer in the Chicago area before going to law school. He met his wife during an internship during law school. He eventually ended up teaching law at the University of Chicago before he went full time into politics. He began as a state representative then turned to the national political scene. All of that is detailed in the book.
Additionally, Senator Obama talks about his political views and his political vision for the future. It’s kind of challenging to corner Mr. Obama on his political views, but if I had to give a two word summation it would be “moderate progressive.†He recognizes the need for compromise (he’s not a fundamentalist in any sense of the word), but wants some progressive changes, including: universal health care, access to jobs and welfare reforms, stronger unions, fiscal responsibility for the government, and better international diplomacy. In all of that, he recognizes that you must compromise in politics, or you’ll never get anything done. Perhaps the most compelling message of the book is that Senator Obama sees his political adversaries as people who have reasoned arguments for their positions, just like he does. If you dismiss the opposition as crazy, you’re never going to get anywhere. Recognizing their wants and desires will get you a lot further than dismissing them.
Review:
I have to admit up front I find Senator Obama’s arguments compelling and I think he is a charismatic individual who is qualified to lead this country. That doesn’t mean I’ll vote for him; a lot has to happen before that is even an issue. But there were a few problems in the book that I think warrant discussion.
First, I think he overstates the strength of evangelicals in the U.S. Certainly evangelical Christians are a forced to be reckoned with, with a good 15% to 25% of the vote. But evangelical Christians also don’t necessarily vote as a bloc, I believe their strength is ebbing, and I think their numbers are slowly declining. So, while he does a little pandering to the evangelicals, I think his time would be better spent focusing on progressives and moderates, people with whom he has the most in common.
While I’m discussing religion I also want to mention his discussion of his own religious views. He talks about his religious conversion so euphemistically and vaguely that it almost seemed to me like nothing actually happened. He probably did formally join a Christian religion at some point, but I’m inclined to believe it was predominantly for political reasons. I don’t know that I should doubt his sincerity outright, but he comes across more as a closet agnostic than anything else – he doesn’t talk about his faith as though he “absolutely believes it all to be true†but rather in the sense that it might be true and would be good if it was, but he is also very tolerant of secular positions and even seems to embrace them. I probably shouldn’t criticize him on this front; if he really is a closet agnostic, he has more of my interests in mind than those of openly religious individuals. And, considering open agnosticism or atheism is a one way ticket out of politics, this is probably as close as seculars are going to get in this day and age to having political representation at the national level. So, he seems a little disingenuous, but I’m okay with that.
Another point related to religion that I found less than compelling in this book was Senator Obama’s belief that young people have a desperate desire for a sense of purpose. I think most people like to have a sense of purpose, but I don’t see any real evidence indicating a wholesale return to religion among young people. Sure, adolescents are about as religious as their parents are (see Smith and Denton’s 2004 book), but after adolescents, parental religion isn’t even correlated with adult religion. Children leave religion in droves after about 18. Are they looking for a sense of purpose? I’m not inclined to think so, though many probably will eventually try to find one. So, using this as the basis of some of his arguments just doesn’t seem founded in the empirical literature.
Another sociological faux pas is Senator Obama’s comparison of families today with families of the 1950s. He pushes this idea particularly hard for blacks, claiming the ideal black family was the black family from the 1950s. As Stephanie Coontz illustrated in her amazing book, The Way We Never Were, the 1950s family was both an anomaly and a facade. Thanks to a variety of changes – major wars, economic and technological advances, migration, marketing, etc. - the family of the 1950s was just weird. Today, nuclear families – a husband, wife, and two kids – are a minority, not the majority. Nuclear families never were an overwhelming majority. And, even when they were common in the 1950s they were not a panacea – many women were oppressed, depressed, and angry and fathers actually spent less time with their kids. I understand the attraction of make believe nostalgia, but I’m not a fan of propaganda techniques in politics. There was no “heyday†of the nuclear family. The family is ever changing and malleable; there is no hard and fast form that is the ideal, and that is what makes the concept so lasting. (He does, however, get the reason behind women working outside the home in increasing numbers partially right – economic pressures, not some “decline†in family values and not even feminism.)
I want to return, briefly, to the point I made above, that Senator Obama appears to be a moderate who is willing to compromise and able to empathize. He makes a number of great points about conservatives, in general, and the Bush administration, in particular. Specifically, he addresses the claim that both of these groups are fascists. While I’m no fan of either conservatives or the Bush administration, I think Senator Obama is right on this point – we are a far cry from Naziistic fascism. Let’s just hope we stop traveling down that road soon. Another attractive characteristic of the Senator is that he admits he doesn’t have all the answers. This ties into the same point as he realizes that government should not be monopolistic in favor of the ruling party. Republicans are, yes, people too (gasp!), and their perspectives are needed as they represent the beliefs of a large segment of the population. Even if we think they are crazy, we need to try to understand their views so we can work with them.
Overall, I thought this was a generally insightful and engaging read. It does a good job of introducing the Senator and his views. It also has a certain appeal for those of us wondering just how we can bring the two ends of the culture war spectrum together to enact meaningful change. Compromise is essential. Those unwilling to do so (fundamentalists), can’t actually be tolerated for the safety, security, and sanity of the rest of us. (I know that sounds bad, but it is what it is.)
