Barack Obama

The man inside the enigma is clearer to me after last night’s speech. The enigma of Barack Obama wasn’t just about the man; its unveiling showed a truth to me about humanity. The power and mystique of Barack Obama is a microcosm of the more general power and mystique of human nature, social unity, progress, leadership, creativity and personal growth.

Barack Obama is still in the process of discovering and mastering himself — or discovering his future, or perhaps mastering the future — and the key to his character is to appreciate what it means to be a perpetually incomplete person. All of the massive personalities in history have been of this type: searching and creating and learning from their first to last breaths — progressively and cumulatively rather than careening from one moment to the next.

Obama has an open sense of the future that propels him forward and attracts new opportunities, relationships, concepts, and practices. His campaign works as both a metaphor and a demonstration of this. It operates as a co-creative, open source movement, taking advantage of viral social networks and collaborative tools, crowdsourcing things like songs and t-shirts (not to mention financing and registration drives) to and from passionate people from the edges of the organization. (I managed to squeeze all of the current business cliches into one sentance. See more here and here.)

As he incorporates new elements — e.g. as his platform and campaign progresses, grows, and becomes more complex — the whole sense of mission and identity develops a new form of integrity and coherence (if only just by small degrees and nuances) which in turn generates new connections and opportunities for growth.

By now Obama’s core sense of mission and identity are fairly mature; they aren’t going to change radically. Barack Obama the citizen “found himself” decades ago. Barack Obama the presidential candidate only found himself this week. Any serious doubts about party unity are gone and Obama has formally flexed into the party’s point position, capturing people’s undivided attention (if only for a moment, but a moment to build on).

What I was especially impressed by was how the other speakers (all the way to the guy doing the closing benediction) managed to use the same message in their own way, selling “Change” and “Yes We Can” as if they were their own. Campaigns always have a message, and all the speakers at conventions are always encouraged to incorporate it, but the Obama brand is so well developed that any passionate supporter (not to mention the other giant personalities that were controversially allowed to share the stage this week) can compose their own riff on it without corrupting it.

Obama is the Miles Davis of politics. Miles demanded the best of the young musicians in his band; he was not afraid of letting them contribute their own qualities to the music — in fact, Miles wanted them precisely because they would challenge him (and each other) to adapt and grow in response. He was the visionary genius directing it and the mystical figurehead unifying it.

It takes a lot of mastery to get to that level — to not be afraid of not being able to anticipate and control every detail, to be open to new challenges and opportunities. However the polls play out, Obama demonstrated that he is a truly great leader. If he went into business instead of politics he would be one of the most highly regarded CEOs today.

When you look deeply into the background of his seemingly spontaneous rise, it’s apparent that the road to the presidency hasn’t been so accidental and effortless at all. It isn’t that these rare personalities (Pierre Trudeau is another example) don’t play politics as a game, it’s that they actually play the game on a higher, more complex level. The great politicians approach the stadium like Dungeonmasters while the rest play charades.

But the fact that Obama is stylized and strategic doesn’t mean he couldn’t have also cultivated genuine substance and compassion. Nor are ambition and egotism strictly opposed to humility and authenticity. In some people all of these qualities occur in perfect harmony.

The most effective strategies are designed to evolve naturally and manage themselves organically at the edges rather than rely on centralized command and control; they are designed to assimilate, accommodate, and adapt according to unexpected circumstances, developing new opportunities and solutions as new realities emerge.

As for personal ego, there are many ambitious politicians who believe they have the potential to be president or prime minister, and they attach great value to their goals, victories, and titles. Then there are the big dreamers for whom the presidency is just a means to something even greater, who are so self-assured that they don’t even need the reassurance of winning.

This is where extreme egotism and extreme humility become indistinguishable; this is where we need to ask if egotism and humility are ever really separate or if they merely hide one another in different shades. Coming at the end of the bloodiest century in human history — in which the great tyrants and manipulators have all succumbed to downfall, humiliations, and hatred (if not in their own lifetimes, at least as we look back at them) — any student of statesmanship learns that to be great you must be good. The will to win is often coeval with the will to be a truly positive influence in the world.

I think Obama wouldn’t have written this on September 19, 2001, if he was merely looking for the best way into the White House:

“We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.” [New Yorker]

Behind that statement is essentially the same core message we heard Thursday night. “Change” and “Yes We Can” weren’t contrived by consultants and campaign staff; the message evolved with Obama personally and professionally, becoming both more robust and more refined as he learned and grew with it. The message is integral to his character, and is now becoming integral to the character of our age as it resonates with people’s emotions.

There’s a rhythm to it. (I’m stealing this from one of my favourite philosophers of education.) The most effective way to educate is begin by appealing to the passions, then once people’s attention is committed they’re willing to apply discipline and reason.

He’s supposed to be the cerebral guy in this race, yet he managed to put on the biggest, most thrilling spectacle ever seen in a political campaign, ever. Amazing.

Incredibly, the bombast (the pillars, the fireworks) did not seem at all out of place. They fit the man and the moment perfectly. If George W. Bush tried pulling something like that off it would be a total farce. It only works with a personality that stands just as tall and a mind that burns just as bright.

Some people who cover this stuff are saying there was too much policy talk in the middle of the speech, and that it didn’t inspire them like his 2004 speech. But Obama already said that speech. Since then he has continued to progress. His task now is to adapt the spirit of the message to the full scope and depth of the realities we face in the world today (and will face tommorrow).

The impression I got was that he was introducing a new generation to participatory democracy and civic engagement (and reintroducing older generations). People were listening — a lot of people. Dare I say, yesterday might be remembered as the day politics became cool — the day politics became awesome.

McCain was my favourite U.S. politician for years. But the challenges that the world faces today demand a paradigmatic figure to orient everyone in the same direction, to get everyone involved in the same conversation. Obama is that figure, and last night was the moment he made that clear.

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