Don't Expect a Miracle

When a society has been subjected to collective trauma, as Americans have been by the attack of 9/11 and the current economic crisis, its members tend to fall under the spell of one or another form of what I call "resurrective ideology"--shared beliefs that seek to restore illusions shattered by trauma. One form such reactive ideology may take is the attribution of messianic powers to an admired leader, an attribution that, when it is disappointed as it inevitably must be, brings further traumatization.

In the context of the economic crisis, President Obama has been wisely discouraging such messianic attributions, letting us know that we need to keep our expectations of him and his administration within the limiting bounds of human possibility and fallibility. Although he has repeatedly demonstrated, as he did at the G-20 meetings, that he is a calming presence with an acute grasp of the complexities of our collective situation, he has also consistently emphasized that the road to economic recovery will be a long, difficult, and painful one, requiring perseverance, hard work, sacrifice, patience, and self-discipline.

Obama can no more miraculously save us from the cumulative consequences of many years of economic foolishness than Bush's holy war against the "forces of evil" could resurrect our lost illusions of grandiose invincibility.

Comments

[poorpearl]

01:57 PM on 04/04/2009

Very true, and well said. Americans have been lied to by their elected officials for so long, that when someone really means what he says-- that the required changes (ie a complete overhaul of healthcare, energy policy, and re-regulation of banking systems) are going to be painful (ie expensive), the people aren't having trouble with this, but the Republicans are! Far from being messianic, he is confronting us with painful realities and the need to address them. Success will require all of us to be willing to persist, to not falter. The American people have been facing this grim truth for much of the past 8 years, while many Republican elected officials had their heads buried in the sand, or somewhere else. Or more to the point, it's only recently that their money sources dried up. NOW they get it. When difficult times hit that economic level, even the Republicans get it. But they still won't want to deal with how we got here.