The Common Man Narrative: Rousseau, Tito, the Obamas
Such degradation of culture and art arises from the disastrous and romantic ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The notion that poverty breeds nobility comes from spoiled theorists like Rousseau who have not experienced the meanness that such an environment often brings about. (Perhaps the most dangerous is the man who grows up rich and then acquires populist pretensions.) The romantic view is dangerous in its sentimentality. The romantic poets charted heroic narratives for themselves as they championed those they saw as simple and virtuous.
More often, hunger and poverty breed coarseness and meanness. Those who rise from such depths often lord over those beneath them. It is especially true of those who resent the “aristocracy” — those embittered by having been beneath anyone else socially or economically. They seek to get what’s “theirs” — whether on a private or public scale.
Rousseau’s notion about the “general will” of a people who follow a leader attuned to their desires provided the blueprint for communism. Rousseau saw civilization, and its order, as impediment to a natural happiness. Of course, natural feelings lead to, among other base inclinations, greed.
Back in the place of my birth, a machine worker, Joseph Broz Tito, rose to be the tyrannical leader of Yugoslavia. Forming his little oligarchy, this “worker” indulged himself with villas and extravagances for guests, paid for by peasants like my family who sometimes had to give the government more crops than they harvested.
It is the Democratic Party that questions the Electoral College and agitates for the popular vote. They spread their largess from money confiscated from taxpayers. Obama calls the 65-year-old Joe Biden — who never served in the military, has worked for only two years in the private sector, and has enjoyed a comfortable standard of living at public expense — a “public servant.” But he is no Cincinnatus, no General George Washington who declined a third term as president.
And the narrative of Michelle Obama, who in reality enjoyed a middle-class upbringing with a stay-at-home mother, and then an Ivy League education and the benefits of affirmative action, should send a warning. The Michelle Obama speaking on Monday night sounded quite different from the one who took perceived slights during her days at Princeton and turned them into a bitter social indictment in a thesis. Her “public-sector” volunteer work at the University of Chicago Medical Center, a public hospital, for which she presumably “gave up” a lucrative law career, garnered her a $200,000 bonus after her husband’s election to the Senate, to make her salary well over $300,000 a year. And the Obamas have been helped by a convicted felon slumlord who did not use his government aid to keep up his housing for poor people.
I’d rather see someone in office who didn’t know how many houses he has acquired from an inherited private fortune over one bent on acquiring villas or mansions at public expense. The notion that a future president, as Michelle Obama stated Monday, wants to remake the world into what he says “it should be,” should sound the alarm bells. We’ve heard egomaniacs state similar sentiments to the masses before.
The problem is not the “common man” meme. That is the heart and soul of the American revolution and the American character, even if the leftists mercilessly milk it, and quite unworthily in these times, for it is they above all who represent smug elitism. The problem is the Rousseauan take on it vs. the classic liberal (Montesquieu, Burke) one. One was based on a benighted idealistic view of man that lead to totalitarianism, countless blood being shed for centuries, beginning with the Robespierre Terror, on through imperialism, and the Communist and Nazi Holocausts. The other understood man as an inherently flawed creature that needed limits. That understanding produced, rights of man, constitutional law, checks and balances – western law. The Obama’s desire to “remake the world” is not based upon a humble understanding and exaltation of the “the common man,’ who in the original Biblical understanding was made in God’s image but fallen from grace, rather the denial of a flawed nature which produces the rampant arrogance, narcissism, and statist goals we see in leftist politics.
Thank you, Mary.
There is much food for thought here.
We don’t need a “common man” in the Presidency. The Presidency requires a person who, in some form or fashion, has achieved greatness.
A little background – In a lot of countries, there are TWO people at the top of the political food chain. I don’t mean a prez and a vice, I mean two separate and distinct positions. A leader of the country AND a leader of the government. A President and a prime minister. A Chairman of the board and a CEO. A person who’s vision defines the direction of the country and who serves as the figure head for the country AND a completely separate person who serves as the manager of the business of the country’s government who manages dozens of cabinet departments, manages the routine relationships with hundreds of countries and who leads the mechanical processes of executing the vision of the country.
The United States is uncommon in that we place both of these roles on the shoulders of one person. The “Leader” of the most powerful country ever to exist in the history of the world and the “Manager” of the largest and most complex governmental organization ever to exist are – in the United States – the same person.
When we vote for our President we have typically voted based almost exclusively our opinion of a candidate’s leadership qualities and vision BECAUSE a candidate’s ability to execute the “Prime Minister” role was accepted as an almost unspoken given. We – as a country – have always assumed that if a candidate could seriously get their name mentioned in the same sentence with the word President that they would have world class levels of management skills, education and experience. We have always voted for the vision because the ability to bring the vision about was always assumed. “Greatness” in some capacity, has always been a job requirement. Almost every person in serious contention for the Presidency had been a Governor, a Mayor of a city the size of most states, a CEO of a company the size of some countries, a world class military leader or had some other world class level of management experience. We listen first to our candidate’s vision because their ability to bring their vision into reality has already been extensively demonstrated. Every serious candidate for the Presidency had been the leader of thousands and had done things far beyond “common”. We may not have agreed with their politics – but serious candidates had – in some form – always achieved greatness before aspiring to the presidency.
For the first Presidential election in my lifetime, this isn’t true. Obama has never managed anything of any scale or scope – ever! Obama has grand ideals and can speak in soaring rhetoric, but he has never actually “done it” in any context whatsoever. He can not point to any situation of any kind and say “Here is where my vision became reality.” I am not saying Obama has zero experience as hyperbole when I mean he has less than I would like. Obama has absolutely NO relevant management experience whatsoever.
Obama has all the credibility of a really good barber shop political philosopher. He can pontificate like no body’s business – but he has never actually done any of what he is talking about. He asks that we “give” him “greatness” as a gift – having never achieved it on his own.
Obama can’t speak whatsoever. He is only a gifted teleprompter reader. More suited to the dying MSM news anchor position. Maybe that’s why the MSM love him so much, he gives hope that they could each become president.
That, sir, while a popular meme on the Right— flies in the face of evidence and reason. You can have it one way or the other: he’s EITHER a professorial elitist academic, or he’s a stupid board incapable of stringing words together without a teleprompter. As evidence to the contrary: the SEVENTEEN MINUTE, 2,500 WORD response he gave to a lady concerning a campaign issue on the trail— AND— the health care sit down, in which he made the ENTIRE room of Republicans look like a pedantic group of 4 year olds, as he lambasted them on policy issue after policy issue, and all they could do is look forlornly at their props; “oh, how heavy all that paper is you expect us to read in the health care bill”.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/04/obamas-17-minute-2500-word-res.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/25/barack-obama-healthcare-reform-summit
But no– you were busily yet again attempting YET ANOTHER futile vein of argument trying to de-legitimize the man?
“GDT,” I don’t think The Obamboozler could even hold his own in a barbershop: there are too many differing opinions and only so many mirrors (…unless one had a teeny-tiny teleprompter in it…).
There’s truth in what you say, but I missed any reference to the same behavior by Republicans… we don’t need no stinkin’ European royalty or class structure. Reagan had it right, the American people get it right more often than not… it’s the government we need to keep in check, not the people. We have a Constitution, and a damn good one, with checks and balances. But, just like they told us, if we the people don’t use the power entrusted to us to make sure it’s followed, then we will lose the precious freedom we love. The truth is coming out about Obama, and his ties to corruption… he’s not going to get elected. McCane picked a “braveheart” people’s warrior in choosing Palin for VP… he’s got my vote!
obamas big hope is that he gets elected and then, he can get the government to take care of his brother living in that hut in kenya.
note bo isnt subsidizing his brother, he wants us to organize as a community to do it.
bo has credentials working at acorn, the organization of nobel largesse, its a gov funded office for fixing elections. i see no record of obama or biden doing anything but taking thier seats at the table of largesse, its the one and only goal they have.
has Acorn released its records of obamas daily life witin thier little scheme?
Good article.
An excellent article that informs and challenges. I don’t know how is was growing up in places other than the mountains of Kentucky among the free-spiritied independent common people made uncommon largely through their churches; and teachers who loved their students and realized that education offered the opportunity for them to rise above an ignorance that was fueled by superstition and fear.
I thought the greatest loss was when the system lost the vision of people like Professor Howard, and teachers were teaching for a paycheck. but the bottom really began droping out 40-50 years ago and developed to the animalistic behavior encouraged by professors devoted to a revolunary ideology today.
Common people don’t draw crowds in Germany (well, the rock bands helped), don’t write books and make millions, don’t run around with radicals and try to hide it.
They don’t aspire to the name “Messiah” in deed or word. Or take the US flag off their 757 in preference for their personal logo.
A few common people may have a pension plan that is at full salary plus COLA even if they are fired for cause by their employer, plus health insurance…but I suspect damn few.
Common people don’t hold jobs where they can vote “present”, they have to make decisions. They don’t have armed bodyguards so that they can advocate disarming others for no reason without any consequences to themselves.
In fact there is little common people do that does not have direct personal consequences, good or bad.
Contrast these litmus tests to Barry O and Joe B.
The final point is if they are lying about such a transparent farce, what else is farce, if less transparent?
“The problem is not the “common man” meme. That is the heart and soul of the American revolution and the American character”
That is simply false. The American Revolution was premised on merit. One may have been born a “common man,” but through hard work earned their place in the sun. Alexander Hamilton may very best represent this mindset. Understanding this distinction is of utmost importance. The French Revolution glorified egalitarianism. We adamantly rejected it.
When citing Rousseau it is enlightening to cite Rousseau’s behavior as well as his writing. Rousseau had five children by his wife. Within a month of the births of each child he placed them in nurseries in Paris, where records of their remaining days were lost. Neither he nor history knows what happened to his offspring. All we know is that few children survived nurseries of Paris of that era.
Rousseau is one of history’s greatest examples of ‘Do as I say, not as I do.’
Obama DOES have executive experience. He was the leader of a Chicago organization that was funded by the Annenberg Foundation. They gave millions to advance educational opportunities, & especially for the poor in minority communities.
However, if one examines that position & what he and Mr. Ayers, the noted 60′s radical associated with “the Weatherman,” one finds they squandered millions. One notes those organizations Obama sent money to, were all organizations promoting social issues, promoting racial issues.
Few, if any educational groups benefited from the intended purposes of the Annenberg Challenge fund.
In short, Obama & his terrorist buddy spent money like drunken sailors, wasted it on issues other than real education (the Algebra project was rejected despite the need for more investment in teaching kids the maths needed to better themselves), and those who sponsored this activity are now trying to cover up its history.
Only recently has an investigator been given access to the records & so far, all he has found are records indicating Obama’s executive experience was to waste money on pet projects that promoted the socialist ideals he is so invested in.
Keep your eyes & ears open on this issue. Look for it in the media (although based on their performance one can almost bet the bank they will deliberately overlook this to cover for their anointed one), and see just what kind of “leader” (sic) Obama would be.
And your evidence detailing the smears alleging misappropriation of funds? It’d be grand if they didn’t go IMMEDIATELY back to World Net Daily, if you wouldn’t mind. The auspice of objective non-partisan journalism is all the rage.
Paul Johnson’s book INTELLECTUALS takes on Rousseau, Karl Marx and every left-winger I’ve ever loathed hilariously. I wish I’d read it before I went to university. I could have tormented my left-wing professors endlessly.
America is a country of self-made aristocrats. As Cindy and John McCain said on separate programs this morning, her father, an air force hero, sold his car to start a business and became very wealthy. More power to him. I respect those whose energy leads to the creation of great wealth. But I most admire those who battle in the field of ideas as Sarah Palin has done and will do.
Governor Sarah Palin has many stories to tell. The most important for our country is HOW did she defeat the corrupt powers that be. If I had the youth and energy I’d be planning to follow in her footsteps. I’m sure many are thinking the same thing.
As a nation, we had almost, almost begun to believe that “you can’t beat City Hall.” Well, here’s a great warrior who did. An American Margaret Thatcher. President Reagan must be smiling.
Mary: With your insight, you could be president of the United States. You are right on with all your coluums. Thank You!
we are all “common man”. the european aristocracy assumes its nobility through self-promotion and a stream of excuses throughout history as to why they are special and therefore deserving of more. america, on the other hand, as it was envisioned, elevates reason, fairness, and the laws that make it possible. one person is not more noble than another, rather aspirations can be noble. merit, is noble. truth, is noble. the ideal always falls short of perfection, but the honor is in its pursuit. in this capitalist society, one can pile up money and stand on it, and still not be looked up to. that is the brilliance of america. it is frightening, even heartbreaking, to have, as another comment ponted out, this “transparent farce” of obama’s candidacy. his campaign from the outset is antithetical to everything that is america. obama’s is the most base appeal to black separateness, mob emotion and worship of his paltry self as messiah. that is his treason, worse even than gw bush and his cronies with their skulduggery and greed. i have always been a democrat, because it once was the party of eleanor and franklin, harry truman and fiorello laguardia. and, lyndon johnson, on whose face was etched the agony of vietnam and the redemption of america through his great society legislation. i have been waiting for that democratic party to return, but instead it has devolved into nothing. this election i will vote for mccain-palin.
An excellent article. My sentiments exactly.
Mike Obama did not enjoy the fruits of affirmative action, she suffered them. She was acutely aware she never fit in at Yale, and that it was her preparedness–never to be remedied–and not her color. She undoubtedly saw the vey same dynamic at work with most other hypenated students at Yale.
Later, her administrator salary tripled as her affirmative-action husband gained a Senate seat. But she refused such a blatant groveling attemp at influence peddling through the expense of her integrity. Not.
It is not easy not earning your way. Even without a conscience, it grates on the pride. No wonder she’s always angry. She grasps that she is not brave enough to leave the Liberal Plantation.
Total right wing babble. Appealing to the common man is a staple of American politics period. It is a true american conceit. Jefferson was an early acolyte to that cult, he worshiped the simple citizen farmer. Look at the way Bush was packaged in 2000; simple, plain speakin christain cowboy. Nothing is wrong with that. While the common man may not be as virtuous as the upper classes. Rosseau seems to be every cons whipping boy, but he has ten times the insight than his critics, who harp on his faults but ignore his genius.
Judy NYC, European aristrocrats were born into it and had their privileges as part of law, not “the european aristocracy assumes its nobility through self-promotion and a stream of excuses throughout history”. You sound like the aristrocats were salesman and promoters, something they would prolly slap you for if you made that comparison to their face.
Nothing is more painful than listening to some con trying to be erudite. William Buckley is dead and most cons end up sounding more like Hannity or Lars Larson than anyone with honesty and intelligence.
“Javelin,”
please spare us all your COMMUNIST DISPARAGEMENTS. WE know them mostly from USSR, Poland, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, etcetera, etcetera….
“Privileges” is SUCH a “hot” word for neo-Communist apologists/wannabes such as you.
OMG…HOW SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.
You seek the destruction of the United States of America as it stands and nothing less.
MY exit question : Will you finally admit it, pipsqueek?!
p.s. Maybe I have it wrong…wanna meet on a corner and have it out, as your intellectual brothers of the NSDAP did in the 1920′s?! That’s all you seem to care about, you (verbal) coward.
“neo-communist apologists”— how lazily Ann Coulter of you. Well, we all know you can flame ad hominem attacks, but do you have any substance beyond vapid stupifying RightWing red meat? You know— anything that isn’t patent lunacy?
C’mon, both Biden and Hussein are spending time wondering how, if elected, they can turn their victory into even greater profits. Hussein is a Chicago hack who distributed millions of dollars of Annenberg money to other Chicago hacks. He has crooked Chicago friends and routed federal money to his wife’s pay check. Clueless Joe is in bed with lobbyists and makes money as his son sells Biden’s influence. How much better could they do in the White House!
I am in awe of such intelligent people such as Mary Grabar and many who comment on her website. I guess what really inspires me is to see such intelligent people who are both smart and have a great deal of common sense. One thing I can not figure out is how so many far-left liberals can be so intelligent and yet so ignorant when it comes to judging political leaders. Well, they really are not leaders, but they occupy high level positions that have a very serious impact on our country and our lives. And, I said intelligent people, but did not say smart and common sense. Anyhow, here is a question I would ask all of you.
How can so many intelligent people be deceived by someone like Obama based on mere words and no deeds? Can they truly believe he is capable of managing and leading America – one of the most diverse, powerful and prosperous countries in the world. Is it because the main stream media as helped promote the agenda of those ultra-liberal within the Democratic National Committee? Is it the enormous financial backing of those in the shadows, such as George Sorros? After all, the conservative Christians make up the majority in America. Perhaps that is part of the problem. Has conservative America given up? Are they being lazy by not getting involved, even when it comes to voting? What events lead Obama to be where he is today, the DNC’s nomination for President with millions of supporters?
Ed Wallis
I am not a communist, but you are a typical example of an ugly, stupid, abusive little right wing dittohead. You’re stupid and uneducated, so save your opinion for your ilk.
And since you further disparage me, a patriotic American Jew, by comparing me to a Nazi, that is more proof you are a brainless right wing pig. Go call Rush so you can babble about liberals, you ignorant toad.
javelin: yes, the european aristocracy are salesmen and promoters. very good at it, too. they’ve been selling that ridiculous line of crap for a long time, but americans have never bought it. let’s all line up for brain scans and see how this self-annointed perception they are different supports itself. in any case, if i were slapped by a self-styled aristocrat i would immediately run over that person with my jeep wheels, just to show they squish, like anyone else.
Obama is worse than common. He can’t even answer a simple question, especially when he knows his response can come back to haunt him later. It’s like uh, uh, uh, uh…he didn’t come out of Yale or Columbia. His performance at the Saddleback Forum was a humiliating disaster. That’s why he’s scared to death of town hall meetings and refuses to meet McCain in any. He knows he can’t control the questions, and the American, common and not-so-common, people will have too many questions to ask him, which he does not want to answer. In a town hall meeting, we will ask him about what accomplishments he’s actually achieved as a State Senator, as a US Senator and as that infamous Community Organizer; why did it take him 20 years to finally denounce his spiritual advisor, the racist and white and Jew-hating Reverend Wright who praised another racist and anti-Jew, Louis Farrakhan; how he intends to pay for all of his billion-dollar promises, like universal health care; why, and how, he could allow his poor relations, especially his half-brother to live in abject poverty and misery (this hypocracy just blows me away because he’s supposedly for the poor and disadvantaged). He’s just a big phony who used people to get where he’s at, but totally forgot where he came from. I think that’s the ‘common man’ that the author was referring to — those who moved up in the world too quickly and forgot their roots. Until he answers these and other questions, and gets up and helps his relations in Kenya, especially his poverty-stricken brother, I have no respect for him at all. His wife, Michelle, is worried to death that his African relatives will come out of the woodworks and tell the world Obama’s dysfunctional past and present. But remember: the truth hurts, but it shall set you free. Look at John Edwards and former NY Governor Spitzer…the truth came out, and the Democratic Party has totally set them free.
Aristrocats are born that way and in a certain societies their privileges are codified into law. It has been some fault of some Americans to look favorably on aristocrats, like the House of Windsor, out of some story book romantic nostalgia at best.
888, McCain wasn’t too much better at Saddleback, “We will confront evil everywhere and defeat it!” what fairy tale nonsense. Since we all have some evil in us, it is part of our existence, wouldn’t that be a call to humanity’s extinction.
Extinction?! argumentum ad absurdum, “Javelin” (5:55pm).
But I suppose you’re more comfortable with the folks from the privileged House of LottaTalk.
“That is simply false. The American Revolution was premised on merit. One may have been born a “common man,” but through hard work earned their place in the sun.” (Dave Thompson)
Yes, we agree on that. I tried to distinguish between two “common man” narratives in our culture- the leftist egalitarian one that descended from Rousseau to the leftists of our times, and the conservative view, primarily based upion Judeo-Christian thinking, or what Allan Bloom called “the pessimistic view.” There was common ground and there were divergences. The Founding Fathers also shared a wide range of views from one perspective to the other.
“Since we all have some evil in us, it is part of our existence, wouldn’t that be a call to humanity’s extinction.” (Javelin)
Obviously, at the Saddleback interview, McCain was not talking about the doctrine of orginal sin or the Judeo-Christian view of the fallen nature of man, rather geopolitical realities. Obama, in classic pseudo-intellectual smuggery, tried to be sly in twisting that doctrinal truth into a political slam on America, invoking the Leftist mantra that America is just as wrong or even more so, than Russia, Iran, N. Korea, or Islamic terrorists.
I took great joy in reading your article. These days – especially in the New World – the term “conservative” is often misunderstood as someone who is a religious fanatic or a jingoistic nationalist. Your views expressed in this article are what I call the original, undistorted, respectable conservative views, to which I wholeheartedly agree. To everybody who liked your article I recommend reading Our Culture, What’s Left Of It, from Theodore Dalrymple (available from Amazon). Sadly, there isn’t much online for us to read, except for the Social Affairs Unit, City Journal and The Salisbury Review. Any other recommendations?
Miklos Hollender
UK/Hungary