Nine Hours Of Daylight

Watch the Obama Inauguration speech again, or if you remember it freshly in feeling and on message don't bother. Then read the text, at least most of it and get a sense of what the words convey in black and white. When you're watching and then later while reading, imagine the speech in the voice of George W. Bush. He's making the exact same speech, and you're evaluating it.

Yeah, I know we're done with him. Just bear with me.

The idea is to yes, get caught up in the sweeping emotion when you're watching Obama's speech it and really feel it. Enjoy it. Be inspired - it's good for the country when people are inspired for sound and virtuous reasons. It's not just about Obama the man or the president, it's about what he represents and the ideas that he articulates, strikingly well. It's hard to watch him and listen to him every time afresh, even after the many, many months of campaigning, and not think that he believes in what he says. So if we're being tricked, this is an elaborate and awful trick, one that makes fools of us for simply believing in the core values of our country and the goodness of people and then electing the one who embodies them purely.

The point of reading the text of the speech and hearing it in Bush's voice is to interpret what the words mean without the emotion, or even with a feeling of antipathy toward the speaker. It's a test of belief in a man I suppose, but also a test of the inherent substance of the speech. What do the words say, without such attachment of the heart?

Sometimes Obama directly contradicts the thrust of the Bush administration when he lofts verbal cannonballs, describing how our country must be protected without sacrificing our ideals. That wouldn't need to be said if those ideals hadn't been so clearly sacrificed by the shameful conduct of the Bush/Cheney crew and what resulted. Bush supporters, and there will always be some, are still supporters mainly because "we haven't been attacked since 9/11." Who am I quoting? Them. What else does he get any credit for other than allegedly protecting the country from more terrorist attacks?

Of course, this notion that we have been protected is false. Our reputation in the world after Iraq and Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and torture is wrecked; we only hope it isn't totaled. That and our continued hated presence in the Middle East is what leads to more terrorist attacks. Wiretapping and heightened airport security doesn't prevent them. The hard fanatics find other ways because we have incited fury, and those who are furious are skilled at destruction. They have chosen not to strike in the window created by the time between 9/11 and now, but that's our window, our time frame, not theirs. Even a diminished al-Qaeda is dangerous and strikes on their schedule, not ours.

Play a trick of your own. Imagine it's 2000, but Bush has won the election in the manner he won in 2004: 286 electoral votes (270 needed), 62,000,000+ total votes, 50.8% of total votes, 3,000,000 vote margin of victory. That's a legitimate victory, one that can't be challenged by the Supreme Court. Bush takes this legitimacy and uses it in an attempt to spread good will and unite the country, so he speaks Obama's 2009 inauguration speech.

If you voted for him and believed in him, the same way you feel about Obama now (if you do), you would probably be almost as inspired but maybe not quite, considering Obama's deadly oratory skills - but imagine Bush at his best, not flubbing things, and doing what he did when he was "on", which for him meant clarity and concision and toughness. If you didn't vote for him, would you have believed in him more based on his legitimate victory and impressive speech? Maybe you would give him a chance, or maybe you would at least feel better about the upcoming Bush presidency.

The point is, presidents say a lot of things, as they are politicians who have risen to the apex of success in their discipline. Obama could disappoint us. It's probably a good idea to temper this inspiration with some common sense and a will to criticize honestly. The good feelings associated with this - at the end of the day unbelievable - inauguration are legitimate and the joy is substantive. The man who serves us now in the highest office speaks as if he truly believes in and will uphold our cornerstone ideals. Now it's about how he does it, and if his reach and grasp are equal. His words mean something in that estimation, which won him the presidency and much good will, and so the evaluation of his actions can begin.

Grant Park

...To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you.To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

- Barack H. Obama

November 4, 2008 was the day on which many things ended: an election, a failed presidency, the second class status of a people. For millions apathy, for millions despair, for many more both. For millions more, their vision of the direction of the country would not be realized, and this new and surely different direction would have to be reckoned with.

It's easy to assault a word like hope when it is used so often in a certain context, especially during a political contest. It is also easy to associate the word hope with assumed future policy, in an effort to make those policies seem as if they're based on something without substance.

But of what substance is hope? It must be real; what mainly keeps us going but the hope for a better series of tomorrows? This isn't meant to be flighty conjecture - I've been as atheistic as they come, and thought myself a rationalist, a realist, and not one to succumb to emotional guidance. But the survival instinct alone would drive us to do many grave things, especially when resources are scarce and empathy is forgotten. Besides, we are too advanced intellectually and socially to simply follow the survival instinct mindlessly, save those who barely think at all or those who have just given up, or given in to forces which subjugate their will to be. What of hope and empathy though? The initial quote is a statement of strength through peace, a sophisticated idea and one of the most difficult to realize, and the hope and empathy which is mentioned here again provides much of the bedrock. Without a great many people believing in such lofty ideas, they would be rendered useless. They are tenuous - constantly challenged from within and otherwise - and yet are invaluable, and must be cherished accordingly in the interest of continuing on in a free and prosperous country. The alternatives are nearly unspeakable by comparison.

If emotion isn't a worthy interpretive mechanism with which to know the world, then why does pure rationality fail to provide all useful knowledge? Why does it miss some of the most crucial aspects of the human experience?

I ask because I thought of something I found interesting and I coudn't sleep because of it and thought that maybe I could find a simple answer. I just wanted to know what someone else may think of why evolution happens.

So I typed 'why evolution happens' into a Google search. The first two pages were about 'how evolution happens.' The exact phrase was not present. How and why, of course, are two very different things. I don't expect to get to the bottom of this issue by the end of the entry, but if I do, I'll surely have a better computer soon and wider readership.

I think the question of why evolution happens leads to the failure of atheism. One can explain how evolution happens, one can roughly explain the origins of life, and one can explain the survival instinct which provides the inertia which enables continued existence.

But if evolution and life were truly random, why would a survival instinct be present to continue life? If it were random, why would it be necessary for life to continue? Life would have happened, maybe only for a second, then died out without motivation. What is the motivation? To simply to continue to live? On its face, it makes little sense.

Our success as living creatures seems to suggest a why - and of course, the presence of a why would destroy the random nature of existence. Life is sturdy, and life is strong, and life continues, even when it seems absurd that it's even possible on a rock with water near enough to a star in what seems to be mainly a void. Chance seems like it is only one of several possibilities, but atheism only works if chance is the only possible cause. I reject chance as the only possibility, and therefore I reject hard, material rationality brand atheism, sold at a bookstore near you.

I also reject it because as I wrote before, I think it is necessary for greater possibilities than chance to facilitate hope, which is what drives us to maximize our potential as civilized people, as does community and a real sense of brotherhood gained through shared experience and condition. We are still evolving; our limits are currently unknown. To stop intellectually and philosophically evolving now based on the surety of an almighty God or the surety of a complete lack thereof would be foolish. We travel on, fueled by hope, and yes, survivalist instincts, and love, and things we don't know about ourselves or the world, at least not yet. Maybe we never will, but what we've learned so far about our capacity to succeed and our will to be free while still caring for our fellow man and exploring all of the possibilities inherent to this coil should and does inspire us to continue.