On the Eve of ‘The Obama Age’
There’s a term being bandied about here and there called “The Obama Age.” At first glance, one might be tempted to think of such a thing as an age of political reform, or at least ideological reform, among the masses. After all, aren’t we fed up with unfettered free markets? Aren’t we tired of slash and burn politics? Aren’t we emotionally exhausted by the seeming incompetence of the Bush administration, to say nothing of the blow-back (both historical and looming)? But to couch the “The Obama Age” in such terms is to miss an essential fact–namely, that people in general (and quite regardless of their ideological allegiances) are becoming cognizant of the fact that to succeed in the 21st Century, they must dispense with many of their ill-fitting notions of success and progress.
And ‘how’ are we realizing this? Start with the American response to 9/11. Having been attacked, we responded by counter-attacking. Only, we strategized based upon our (now) outmoded notions of what constitutes warfare (i.e. that there is ‘us’ and our ‘opponent,’ and that our ‘opponent’ is like us, in that they have a nation, an ideology and a culture). Well, we were partially right. Our opponent did have the latter two items (ideology and culture), but we made the mistake of going to war against those items–in essence, we fought against ideas and attitudes with bullets–within the context of a nation that happened to harbor them (well sometimes, at least). The upshot being that we toppled one enabling jurisdiction, without making a dent in any of the others, and therefore failed to adequately deal with the group that attacked us.
In fact, our response would have been roughly the same as attacking Mongolia in retribution for Pearl Harbor. Our opponent still lives, and still plans to harm us.
We ought to have thought of this war as one against a ‘group’ of mobile radicals and responded accordingly. How such a war plan might have been articulated effectively is a larger issue to deal with, though it goes without saying that it might have cost us a great deal of social capital to deal effectively with the threat, but had we dealt with it effectively, it’s likely that the Middle East would be a safer region, and that the United States’ reputation on the world stage might have actually improved. Twenty-first century warfare (or, better put, how we respond to terrorism) is one problem we must solve in the Obama age.
So, we know now that the ‘usual stuff’ did not work after 9/11. We could make other examples, but the point has been made strongly enough here.
People now recognize that a turning point in American history has been reached, and that to succeed, we must reevaluate how we do business as well as how we live. It’s not enough to work harder or work smarter, we must work differently. We must seek to understand what causes our problems, and what we are doing wrong in solving them. What’s more, we must be prepared to appreciate the essential truths of causation and not think along easy ideological lines in how we make sense of them.
And that’s the essential challenge of the Obama Age. How do we as a society properly reorient ourselves in a world of dwindling resources and growing populations? How do we reform our lifestyles so that things such as universal health care become feasible? How do we compete in math in science? How do we?… and so on.
In a few weeks, a new president will be sworn into office, and a new age will begin. You can feel this new age and it is almost palpable in the air. Yes, times are difficult, but for the first time in years, there is a real sense that things can get a lot better and that our fortunes can change. Indeed, things could get radically better. But change does not happen in a vacuum. We must be the change.
Stay tuned.
