David Brooks, who gives me half a dose of the creeps (William Kristol gives me the full dose), in a February 8, 2007 NY Times opinion piece picks up on the affable idea recently circulating that Hillary is to the PC as Obama is to the Mac.
Brooks attacks the difference at a more fundamental level by dividing Democrats along education and income lines and then assigning to each strata, different retail consumer orientations. In this way, he differentiates “commodity” buyers from “experience” buyers. Commodity buyers are more concerned with the purely economic impact of their purchases, while experience buyers are more concerned with the emotional fulfillment that those purchases provide them. Commodity buyers go to Safeway; while experience buyers bicycle over to Whole Foods. Holidays Inns for the former, W Hotels for the latter. There’s Walgreens for everyday folk, and the Body Shop for that special someone.
I think there is truth in his divisions, just as there is truth in the “Two Americas” argument that John Edwards offered. In California, Hillary took non-college educated voters by 22 points in California and by 54% in her ex-home state of Arkansas, while a recent Pew Research survey found Obama holding a general 22 point lead among people with college degrees.
All right, so the numbers do expose relevant demographic breakdowns, but Brooks goes on – in his typically disdainful way, to attribute this elitist behavioral tendency among the more well-educated and better off, as a kind of sole signifier of their liberal and self-absorbed tendencies. They spend the extra money, he says, because it lends meaning to their lives. OK, there is some truth to that, as well. Obama does have the gift of offering a hopeful and attractive alternative to those with time enough to discriminate for themselves and to choose the best of possible alternatives. Besides, there is something sturdy but used with a lot of mileage about a Clinton, and that intoxicating new car smell that clings to an Obama.
But is this new found attraction to Obama based, as Brooks suggests, on “what” he is selling? Or is it, as I think (or at least “hope”) based on “who” he is?
There is no escape from the “class” argument, nor should there be. At the same time, I believe there are those occasional times in our lives when self-interest is overruled by arguments directed neither at our vanity nor at our pocketbooks, but rather at our more enduring sense of morality and justice.
When questions of morality and justice arise, any effort to resolve them must bring us back to the question of “character.” There are rights, and then there are obligations that attend to those rights. Yes, we are free to do as we please. That is after all the fabled pursuit of happiness. But that freedom without some commensurate obligation to support the rights and freedom of others, soon becomes a hollow privilege.
There is a complexity to moral choice that defies simplistic conclusions. Morality asks us not to simply say the right things, but more importantly to take particular actions – actions which might “cost” us in some way. And in the face-off between words and actions, can there be any doubt which speaks louder and which is ultimately for the greater good?
Beyond demographics and spending patterns, beyond surveys and projection, there remains this issue of character… because inspiration can never be removed from the makeup of the person for whom the inspiration is a tangible first-hand experience. Inspiration then, is a delicate and perishable commodity that can only be sold in small portions and for short periods of time. To be sustainable, inspiration must be ignited from within and so passed from one person to another. And though it can be temporarily simulated or excited by what we are told or sold, its persistent and life-altering value is dependent upon it being this constantly renewable resource. Inspiration awakens the more metaphysical aspects of our being, at the same time that it demands of us that we remain authentic and open to its presence in ourselves and in others. Only in this way, can we allow it to guide and strengthen us in bringing about effective change in the way that we co-exist as individuals, couples, families and as citizens – of both nations and the world.
It is obviously true that less educated people with lower incomes are bound to be less optimistic about their lives – and for obvious reasons. Life has taught them hard lessons. Hillary, as did Bill before her, hits at their “blue-collar” concerns by promising to be tough and to fight hard for “them,” To this same demographic, Obama softens his punches with the suggestion that he’ll work “around” those old conflicts, as well as out-maneuver the old and dark “retailers” who perpetuate them, and by so doing, create a new ground of commonality – where one day we will all (rich and poor, educated and uneducated, alike) be better off for the “difficult” work that we have accomplished together.
So, is this Obama thing just another pipe dream, and are all these optimistic self-fullfillers who are currently inflating the Obama bubble, just collectively toking the bong of inevitable disappointment?
I will admit to there being a little more messianic hoopla around the Obama phenomenon than my comfort level will allow. The “Yes We Can” video comes off like wide-eyed puppy-love to me, and listening to Stevie Wonder stretch out Barack Obama’s name into at least ten distinctly sung notes is five notes too many for me.
I think my fear is that the high-end retail “hope” experience machine may need somebody like Obama as much as the defense industry needed Iraq. Retailers, of both the commodity and experience varieties – irrespective of their politics, stood by George Bush for his single-minded belief that as Americans, we have a civic duty to shop. I expect those same retailers are asking themselves, who between Hillary and Obama, will help them ring up bigger sales in the next four years.
I will grant that many of us are deliriously desperate for hope, having spent the last eight years being regularly tormented and exasperated by the ineptitude, corruption and immorality of our own government – and that under such depressing conditions, any inspiration or glimmer of hope might be forgiven as preferable to none. Yet, at the same time, it does seem that the time has come for us all to take a good and questioning look at who we are and what we do, and at who benefits and who suffers in the course of the choices we make in response to the daily force-feed of options that an opportunistic retail spin industry would have us believe are vital to both our survival and our fulfillment.
