Uncritical Exuberance? Judith Butler's take on Obama

I really appreciate this essay by Judith Butler on the election of Obama and the salient points she makes. Since I couldn't find it online, I've decided to post it in full.

Uncritical Exuberance?
Judith Butler

Very few of us are immune to the exhilaration of this time.  My friends on the left write to me that they feel something akin to "redemption" or that "the country has been returned to us" or that "we finally have one of us in the White House."  Of course, like them, I discover myself feeling overwhelmed with disbelief and excitement throughout the day, since the thought of having the regime of George W. Bush over and gone is an enormous relief. And the thought of Obama, a thoughtful and progressive black candidate, shifts the historical ground, and we feel that cataclysm as it produces a new terrain.  But let us try to think carefully about the shifted terrain, although we cannot fully know its contours at this time.  The election of Barack Obama is historically significant in ways that are yet to be gauged, but it is not, and cannot be, a redemption, and if we subscribe to the heightened modes of identification that he proposes ("we are all united") or that we propose ("he is one of us"), we risk believing that this political moment can overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political life, especially political life in these times.  There have always been good reasons not to embrace "national unity" as an ideal, and to nurse suspicions toward absolute and seamless identification with any political leader.  After all, fascism relied in part on that seamless identification with the leader, and Republicans engage this same effort to organize political affect when, for instance, Elizabeth Dole looks out on her audience and says, "I love each and every one of you." 

It becomes all the more important to think about the politics of exuberant identification with the election of Obama when we consider that support for Obama has coincided with support for conservative causes.  In a way, this accounts for his "cross-over" success.  In California, he won by 60% of the vote, and yet some significant portion of those who voted for him also voted against the legalization of gay marriage (52%). How do we understand this apparent disjunction?  First, let us remember that Obama has not explicitly supported gay marriage rights. Further, as Wendy Brown has argued, the Republicans have found that the electorate is not as galvanized by "moral" issues as they were in recent elections; the reasons given for why people voted for Obama seem to be predominantly economic, and their reasoning seems more fully structured by neo-liberal rationality than by religious concerns.  This is clearly one reason why Palin's assigned public function to galvanize the majority of the electorate on moral issues finally failed.   But if "moral" issues such as gun control, abortion rights and gay rights were not as determinative as they once were, perhaps that is because they are thriving in a separate compartment of the political mind.  In other words, we are faced with new configurations of political belief that make it possible to hold apparently discrepant views at the same time: someone can, for instance, disagree with Obama on certain issues, but still have voted for him.  This became most salient in the emergence of the counter Bradley-effect, when voters could and did explicitly own up to their own racism, but said they would vote for Obama anyway. Anecdotes from the field include claims like the following: "I know that Obama is a Muslim and a Terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway; he is probably better for the economy."  Such voters got to keep their racism and vote for Obama, sheltering their split beliefs without having to resolve them.

Along with strong economic motivations, less empirically discernible factors have come into play in these election results. We cannot underestimate the force of dis-identification in this election, a sense of revulsion that George W. has "represented" the United States to the rest of the world, a sense of shame about our practices of torture and illegal detention, a sense of disgust that we have waged war on false grounds and propagated racist views of Islam, a sense of alarm and horror that the extremes of economic deregulation have led to a global economic crisis.  Is it despite his race, or because of his race, that Obama finally emerged as a preferred representative of the nation?  Fulfilling that representative-function, he is at once black and not-black (some say "not black enough" and others say "too black"), and, as a result, he can appeal to voters who not only have no way of resolving their ambivalence on this issue, but do not want one.  The public figure who allows the populace to sustain and mask its ambivalence nevertheless appears as a figure of "unity": this is surely an ideological function. Such moments are intensely imaginary, but not for that reason without their political force.

 As the election approached, there has been an increased focus on the person of Obama: his gravity, his deliberateness, his ability not to lose his temper, his way of modeling a certain evenness in the face of hurtful attacks and vile political rhetoric, his promise to reinstate a version of the nation that will overcome its current shame.  Of course, the promise is alluring, but what if the embrace of Obama leads to the belief that we might overcome all dissonance, that unity is actually possible?  What is the chance that we may end up suffering a certain inevitable disappointment when this charismatic leader displays his fallibility, his willingness to compromise, even to sell out minorities? He has, in fact, already done this in certain ways, but many of us "set aside" our concerns in order to enjoy the extreme un-ambivalence of this moment, risking an uncritical exuberance even when we know better.  Obama is, after all, hardly a leftist, regardless of the attributions of "socialism" proffered by his conservative opponents.  In what ways will his actions be constrained by party politics, economic interests, and state power; in what ways have they been compromised already?  If we seek through this presidency to overcome a sense of dissonance, then we will have jettisoned critical politics in favor of an exuberance whose phantasmatic dimensions will prove consequential.  Maybe we cannot avoid this phantasmatic moment, but let us be mindful about how temporary it is. If there are avowed racists who have said, "I know that he is a Muslim and a terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway," there are surely also people on the left who say, "I know that he has sold out gay rights and Palestine, but he is still our redemption."  I know very well, but still: this is the classic formulation of disavowal. Through what means do we sustain and mask conflicting beliefs of this sort?  And at what political cost?

 There is no doubt that Obama's success will have significant effects on the economic course of the nation, and it seems reasonable to assume that we will see a new rationale for economic regulation and for an approach to economics that resembles social democratic forms in Europe; in foreign affairs, we will doubtless see a renewal of multi-lateral relations, the reversal of a fatal trend of destroying multilateral accords that the Bush administration has undertaken.  And there will doubtless also be a more generally liberal trend on social issues, though it is important to remember that Obama has not supported universal health care, and has failed to explicitly support gay marriage rights. And there is not yet much reason to hope that he will formulate a just policy for the United States in the Middle East, even though it is a relief, to be sure, that he knows Rashid Khalidi. 

The indisputable significance of his election has everything to do with overcoming the limits implicitly imposed on African-American achievement; it has and will inspire and overwhelm young African-Americans; it will, at the same time, precipitate a change in the self-definition of the United States. If the election of Obama signals a willingness on the part of the majority of voters to be "represented" by this man, then it follows that who "we" are is constituted anew: we are a nation of many races, of mixed races; and he offers us the occasion to recognize who we have become and what we have yet to be, and in this way a certain split between the representative function of the presidency and the populace represented appears to be overcome.  That is an exhilarating moment, to be sure.  But can it last, and should it?

 To what consequences will this nearly messianic expectation invested in this man lead?  In order for this presidency to be successful, it will have to lead to some disappointment, and to survive disappointment: the man will become human, will prove less powerful than we might wish, and politics will cease to be a celebration without ambivalence and caution; indeed, politics will prove to be less of a messianic experience than a venue for robust debate, public criticism, and necessary antagonism.  The election of Obama means that the terrain for debate and struggle has shifted, and it is a better terrain, to be sure.  But it is not the end of struggle, and we would be very unwise to regard it that way, even provisionally.  We will doubtless agree and disagree with various actions he takes and fails to take.  But if the initial expectation is that he is and will be "redemption" itself, then we will punish him mercilessly when he fails us (or we will find ways to deny or suppress that disappointment in order to keep alive the experience of unity and unambivalent love). 

If a consequential and dramatic disappointment is to be averted, he will have to act quickly and well.  Perhaps the only way to avert a "crash" – a disappointment of serious proportions that would turn political will against him – will be to take decisive actions within the first two months of his presidency.  The first would be to close Guantanamo and find ways to transfer the cases of detainees to legitimate courts; the second would be to forge a plan for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and to begin to implement that plan.  The third would be to retract his bellicose remarks about escalating war in Afghanistan and pursue diplomatic, multilateral solutions in that arena.  If he fails to take these steps, his support on the left will clearly deteriorate, and we will see the reconfiguration of the split between liberal hawks and the anti-war left.  If he appoints the likes of Lawrence Summers to key cabinet positions, or continues the failed economic polices of Clinton and Bush, then at some point the messiah will be scorned as a false prophet.   In the place of an impossible promise, we need a series of concrete actions that can begin to reverse the terrible abrogation of justice committed by the Bush regime; anything less will lead to a dramatic and consequential disillusionment.  The question is what measure of dis-illusion is necessary in order to retrieve a critical politics, and what more dramatic form of dis-illusionment will return us to the intense political cynicism of the last years. Some relief from illusion is necessary, so that we might remember that politics is less about the person and the impossible and beautiful promise he represents than it is about the concrete changes in policy that might begin, over time, and with difficulty, bring about conditions of greater justice.

Comments

[bts]

What's the source for this? I can't find one on Google.

[Roxie]

Yes, I'm curious, too -- Where was this published, if not online? Great piece.

[scott]

I do not know where it was published, I received it from a professor at NYU. I've asked for the source and will post it as soon as I know. Sorry I don't have it now.

[Michael Buitron]

This is a great essay, but no matter what agenda Obama pursues, there will be some buyer's remorse.
http://imoralist.blogspot.com/2008/11/parataxic-distortion-of-obama.html

[scott]

I heard back and this piece was not originally published anywhere, just sent in an email by Butler to some of her contacts, and I received it third or fourth hand.

[mm]

as far as i can tell the all out break with the left began the day after he won - when he nominated the nafta architect and extreme zionist rahm emanuel. it will only keep going down from here on out. the pressures on him to lean toward moderation are extremely strong and come from all directions. they come from the press (conventional wisdom peddlers), the right (who would prefer him to be as conservative as possible), and regular liberals (who don't want him to make the mistake of the clinton administration - namely to go for bold moves at the outset and fail miserably). now that he's won, it's time for those on the left to place themselvesi n opposition to him and to agitate for progressive and big movements on his part. butler doesn't say anything that leftists don't already know, but it is good to see it written out instead of just sitting in my head making me mildly depressed.

oh, if i could add one thing too...in addition to the problems she discussed with the "transcendence" meme, there is also the problem of complacency regarding racism. it seems like his election has let conservatives say "see there's no race problem in the US" as they have been saying all along. but perhaps this allows all of us to begin having the discussions of structural racism with people who think that racism is only "how i treat people of different races" (if we haven't already been having those discussions :P).

[Lisa]

Why does no one ever mention that Obama supports the Death Penalty? The most fundamental of all human rights is the right to life. If he can not make it past there, how can we expect to make it to illegal war, to illegal detention, to social justice?

[person]

So wait, she's telling people who lived through W., Clinton, Bush I, and Reagan that we need to remember to be cynical about politicians? Gee, thanks, and sorry for getting excited that things might be just a little bit better under an Obama administration. We must be succumbing to fascism! Groan.

[Babs]

Dont tell me not to live,
Just sit and putter,
Lifes candy and the suns
A ball of butter.
Dont bring around a cloud
To rain on my parade.

[Sophie Risner]

I think we have to take into account the fact that Butler is a critical theorist and she is using that stance with which to unpack her ideas on Obama. If you read Butlers essay 'What is Critique' she dynamically ascertains that the idea of critique is a motion with which to 'suspend judgment,' can we not then say that Butler in her own words is 'suspending judgment' of Obama until he begins his narrative with politics? She proposes a lot of really insightful comments and understandings, which I think are very pertinent, relating to the climate of politicians and how a country is ruled. More and more so there seems to be a shift within a contemporary political criticism which starts to wonder, are politicians the best people or the only people capable to run a country, and maybe through this we could afford to find a new way to confront the idea of democracy and go as far as to even demolish it and start again.

[fgh]

Rahm Emanueal is an "extreme zionist" which signifies the downturn of Obama's administration?!

This is the man who had a hand in organizing the Oslo Accords and the meeting between Rabin and Arafat.

[CU]

I think Professor Bulter is struggling between seeing her role as a leftist intellectual (thus a certain supposedly 'reasonable' affinity with Obama) and seeing her difference than someone both near (from the intellectual background) and far. As her reader, I could just mis-interpret her writing to be an American's a bit of grudge to see the land of democracy (supposedly a intellectual land) taken over by a non-white, the other she isn't sure if we could in the end extend trust (she is not interested in whether he is white or not; she is interested in whether Obama can bring up true intellectual/political concerns. Please, there are other political fragments that Americans are facing today, not just gay marriage or 'American issues'). Her general-democratic (regardless of whether Obama is for many others not just an intellectual but also a black intellectual; instead she treated as 'equal' in her discussion of politics) survey of the political landscape nonetheless didn't touch upon other political tensions that are also registered in the Obama issue. Thus I'd say it is not enough to question Obama as an intellectual (minority) event albeit he is a politician. He is also for a number of others a black/minority event. As such her view issued from a point of view that presupposes globalization and a refusal to talk about the 'difference' in terms of how Obama is seen by others (even among intellectuals themselves) is not self-sufficient, although I share with her question of whether politicians really bring us promise or are the best to run the country.

[chowzdown]

It's interesting to re-read this article today, after Obama's first two days in office. So far, Obama has put into motion 2 of the 3 "decisive actions" Butler names as necessary steps if he Obama wishes to maintain the support of the left. Retracting his statements on Afghanistan seems unlikely, and we have yet to hear about any new developments in his stance on the death penalty or gay marriage. The "uncritical exuberance" we saw surrounding Obama's election victory seems to have evolved into spontaneous and passionate expressions of joy and pride. Now that the pomp and circumstance of the inauguration ceremonies has passed, and our uncritical exuberance has dimmed slightly, it is encouraging to witness the first steps the Obama administration has taken. Hopefully the new administration's hubbub about transparency, accountability, and participation will actually encourage a CRITICAL eye, while maintaining some form of "exuberance"...