And the Band Played On

In the wake of the brouhaha about one of my recent blogs, I received considerable contorted media attention. It is unfortunate that my words went through some kind of washing machine that exaggerated and distorted what I wrote.

The message was lost when the media sideshow began. The primary point of my blog was what Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States, said on April 19th about the American spirit is his words stays true that — “the unity and diversity that makes us strong — like no other nation in the world.”

This unique perspective on the American spirit is also the title of my forthcoming book — Out of Many, One (in Latin it is E pluribus unum and it appears on all our coins). The United States is strong, mighty, and secure when the many unite into one. Diversity is our strength.

This is Obama’s worldview. To me, a worldview is more inclusive than an ideology. And to me, a worldview not deterministic than who, where, and when you were raised. It is fluid. It is elastic. It changes — but it flows in a predictable direction, like a modus operandi (M.O.).

A worldview is a combination of factors that are fluid and compounding, not rigid and static. After five years of study, I have concluded that Obama’s worldview showcases the way he thinks in threes, not twos. He creates a triangle of thought (not to be confused with Bill Clinton’s triangulation). He does not say either/or. Like the Three Musketeers, he says “All for one, and one for all.”

Put differently, Obama thinks in terms of correlations, not categories, and certainly not just two categories. In Google lingua it is Plus 2, so by three I mean “more than two,” thus no either/or. It’s complicated! (Film reference intended.)

Obama believes not in the public VERSUS the private sphere, but rather the all-encompassing (and perpetually colliding) social sphere, which includes BOTH the public and the private spheres. The idea of regulation or deregulation is dead, over, done, given globalism.

Yet this is nothing to fear. Obama’s worldview goes further than any other president’s in terms of advancing cosmopolitanism. Obama’s notion of cosmopolitanism is premised upon his lived and learned belief in difference and tolerance — a belief system that fosters individuality.

If I were to dignify the distortions and exaggerations about what I wrote (and even about where I work, despite Obama’s heralding CUNY in his State of the Union Address in January), I believe, it would perpetuate this sideshow. So it is better to disengage than engage, because the United States and all our allies should be concentrating on our underlying cosmopolitan values, which are patriotic. These patriotic values help protect us as a nation; they are part of Obama’s vision of national security.

About the Author: Ruth O'Brien

Professor Ruth O’Brien, who earned her Ph.D. in political science at UCLA, joined the Graduate Center’s doctoral faculty in 1997 and, in 2004, founded the “Writing Politics” specialization in political science. She also serves as an adjunct affiliated scholar with the Center for American Progress. In her research and books, she focuses on American politics, law, political theory without national borders, globalism, and American/global dichotomy. She edits the award-winning “Public Square” series for Princeton University Press, showcasing public intellectuals such as Jill Lepore, Jeff Madrick, Anne Norton, Martha Nussbaum, and Joan Scott. O’Brien is also launching “Heretical Thought,” an Oxford University Press political-theory series that is global in outlook. Her latest book, Out of Many One: Obama and the Third American Political Tradition (2013), with a foreword by journalist Thomas Byrnes Edsall, distinguished professor at Columbia’s School of Journalism, was honored with a 2013 “Author Meets Critic” American Political Science Association convention session. She also wrote Bodies in Revolt: Gender, Disability, and a Workplace Ethic of Care (2005), Crippled Justice: The History of Modern Disability Policy in the Workplace (2001), which received an honorable mention from Gustavus Meyers Center for the Study of Human Rights and Bigotry (“Meyers Center”), and Workers’ Paradox: The Republican Origins of the New Deal Labor Policy, 1886–1935 (1998). “Writing Politics” emanated from two books she contributed to and edited: Telling Stories out of Court: Narratives about Women and Workplace Discrimination (2008) and Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act (2004), which earned another honorable mention from the Meyers Center. O’Brien’s controversial blog led Rush Limbaugh to dub her a “professorette.”

And the Band Played On