The Obama Doctrine

Alas, I wasn’t able to make it to Oslo for the ceremonies surrounding Barak Obama’s award of the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday. So I printed out a copy of the speech and took it with me when I went to give blood. I had a chance to read it through several times while I was hooked up to the pheresis machine and then later I watched parts of the resulting commentary by the talking heads online.

As a result I was pretty well versed in what he had to say when I chose to share segments of it with Joan Thursday evening. I was surprised, nevertheless, when I became overwhelmed with emotion reading it to her. All of which is to say that I find it to be a powerful and important statement, not just of American foreign policy under this President, but of how we as humans might learn to address and resolve conflicts.

I have been working on an essay about principles of nonviolence that King used in his efforts on behalf of civil rights in America so I was already primed for those themes. To have a President, especially one who is increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan, cite King (and Gandhi) as models to follow and to do so in a way that is coherent and carefully considered illuminates the reasons Obama got the award. That he received it saying so many things that so many of his liberal supporters find disagreeable makes it only more remarkable.

I myself didn’t agree with everything he had to say. But my disagreement has mostly to do with his use of the term nonviolence in ways that, while consistent with popular usage, limits the meaning to a set of tactics appropriate to actions taken by oppressed persons addressing grievances against an authority which is morally sensitive. If we limit the term in that way then he is right, it wouldn’t have worked against the Nazis and it won’t work with al Qaeda.

But if we are looking not so much at the tactics as at the philosophy that undergirds it, and think more creatively about how conflicts can be resolved, then we discover some important principles that unite Nonviolence and the Obama Doctrine. Among them:

· We are all connected in a great web of care and concern. What affects one of us affects all of us.

· Passivity or patience in the face of oppression is not only an abandonment of our moral responsibility but is also an invitation to greater violence.

· The road to peace is through a process of relationship building with those with whom we disagree.

· Justice is not simply about the rule of law but is also about the equitable distribution of rights and resources, but such equity is not possible without the rule of law.

· We cannot allow the fact that others abandon righteous behavior to allow us to depart from the values we hold.

These are all examples of the kinds of principles which I hope to celebrate and promote through the promulgation of Creative Conflict Resolution and through Just Conflict.

Integral Politics II

And here is the second post in the series.  View the other one first as it explains concepts used in this presentation.

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Presentation:      Barack and McCain-Looking Through the Talking Points
Presenter:          Clint Fuhs - Operations Manager
URL Link:
http://integrallife.com/files/articulate/Barack and McCain-Seeing Through the Talking Points/player.html
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Integral Politics

Hey Bro,

I just stumbled across this slide show. I think it has relevance for our blog.  I don’t know if the links will translate but I am going to give it a try.

This is a presentation of an integral perspective on politics and comes informed by the philosophy of Ken Wilber.

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Presentation:      A Tale of Four Americas
Presenter:          Clint Fuhs - Operations Manager
URL Link:
http://integrallife.com/files/articulate/A Tale of Four Americas/player.html
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Obama and Liberals

If we lived in a world where people are exactly pigeon-holed as liberal or conservative, we might be able to characterize an Obama voter as a liberal, etc. But, as you correctly note, people fit on a spectrum not into a hole. So, a given person might be "liberal" on abortion, yet conservative on gay marriage. So, when it comes to a choice in the voting booth, a person might just vote on feelings rather than their traditional political alignment. In the last governor's race, I voted for a candidate I strongly respected rather than one I agreed with.
In the last Presidential election, I characterized Obama as a liberal rather than a progressive and came very close to voting for him. He made noises like a liberal, didn't he? I suggest further that many voters rejected the McCain / Palin ticket because they wanted change and Obama promised change.
I submit that the members of your church fit the modern mold of conservatives even though they voted for a the somewhat more liberal candidate. Their contribution is more characteristic of the Christian right. Can you just imagine Nancy Pelosi or Al Gore working in a soup kitchen? These folks in the church voted their conscience rather than their label.
The folks that insist on indoctrination as the price of food are not even on the liberal-conservative spectrum, they are just kooks.

Differentiating Liberals and Conservatives

The whole notion of how one might distinguish a conservative from a liberal has long fascinated me.  Nevertheless, I can’t say I am making much progress in deepening that ability.  I agree that Haidt’s model doesn’t ring true for me in many respects and that the moral foundation of people throughout the political spectrum (if, indeed, it is really a spectrum) is rather a constant.  Points of emphasis may be different, but we all care about being seen as good and we all want the wellbeing of all.  Loyalty, integrity, prudence, thrift are all values we all hold to, although some hold tighter than others and some are more able to be who they aspire to be better than others.

I disagree about your characterization of liberals.  All of the volunteers at the Pilgrim Community Soup Kitchen were strongly for Obama except for one African-American man who recently retired from a career working for the city (and St. Louis has always been Democrat).  They are liberals who volunteer at a local charity.  The conservative groups who give away prepared food require that the recipient hear a message designed to reform and redeem the benighted souls.

As for the role and size of government: I don’t know anyone who wants big government.  My liberal friends want smaller everything (Small is Beautiful) and that would include government if we could find a better way to provide the services we think should be universally available.  There are some things which just aren’t going to happen if government doesn't do them.  (The guy whose efforts ultimately resulted in the birth of the Internet—no, not Al Gore—worked for the Defense Department but took the idea to IBM and someone else and got turned down before he got government to pony up the development money.)

We both seem to be unclear about the differences between liberals and conservative, left and right, red and blue.  We can discern Republican and Democrat but that is because folks make their own choices.  What is the conservative position on climate change?  That seems to depend on which conservative you ask.  Certainly a conservative is not the same as a conservationist.

Liberals and Conservatives

The conservatives I hang out with do not fit the model. Actually, I find the moral foundation of liberals and conservatives to be much the same. The difference then becomes the methods of turning these values into action. The liberals I know volunteer for fund raising events for local charities while the conservatives volunteer at the local charities. Liberals believe that money and government action are the solutions to social issues while conservatives favor personal involvement.
Liberals then have a more visible footprint where social programs are concerned. They may well think conservatives are opposed to social causes because conservatives oppose large government programs supporting those causes. Conservatives channel resources directly to the causes they support while liberals channel resources through the government.
We could say, "What difference does it make whether funding comes directly from the community or through the government?" The distinction is that organizations dependent upon government for resources must design and continually redesign themselves to appeal to agencies. They generate monstrous piles of paperwork. Not only is there significant waste involved but the agency designs itself to work with more with government than with people. The closer I work with local agencies the more I see how the growth of government negatively impacts the ability of local agencies to provide services.

What Liberals and Conservatives care about

A recent article by Tom Jacobs of Miller-McCune reviews the work of Jonathan Haidt, a moral philosopher and psychologist at the University of Virginia.  He has a very interesting take on what distinguishes liberal and conservatives.  He suggests that there are five fundamental moral impulses:

Harm/care: It is wrong to hurt people; it is good to relieve suffering.

Fairness/reciprocity: Justice and fairness are good; people have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.

In-group loyalty: People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty, and patriotism are virtues; betrayal is bad.

Authority/respect: People should respect social hierarchy; social order is necessary for human life.

Purity/sanctity: The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination, and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad.

Put briefly, liberals focus on the first two and conservatives on the last three.  I recommend the review.