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Mark Steyn: The Very Model of a Modern Major Generalist
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE ^ | June 12, 2010 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 06/12/2010 10:15:34 AM PDT by neverdem

The Very Model of a Modern Major Generalist

Like most multiculturalists’, Obama’s ideological worldview doesn’t depend on anything so tedious as actually viewing the world.

 

So a man swept into office on an unprecedented tide of delirious fawning is now watching his presidency sink in an unstoppable gush. That’s almost too apt.

Unfortunately, in the real world, a disastrous president has consequences. So let me begin by citing the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition in Canada. Whoa, whoa, don’t stampede for the exits! The Canadian thing’s just a starting point, I promise. If I’m still droning on about inside-Ottawa stuff five paragraphs down, feel free to turn the page to our exclusive twelve-page pictorial preview of Sex and the City 3, starring Estelle Getty as Kim Cattrall.

Anyway, a couple of years back, Michael Ignatieff, a professor at Harvard and previously a BBC late-night intellectual telly host, returned to his native land of Canada in order to become prime minister, and to that end got himself elected as leader of the Liberal party. And, as is the fashion nowadays, he cranked out a quickie tome laying out his political “vision.” Having spent his entire adult life abroad, he was aware that some of the natives were uncertain about his commitment to the land of his birth. So he was careful to issue a sort of pledge of a kind of allegiance, explaining that writing a book about Canada had “deepened my attachment to the place on earth that, if I needed one, I would call home.”

Gee, that’s awfully big of you. As John Robson commented in the Ottawa Citizen: “I’m worried that a man so postmodern he doesn’t need a home wants to lead my country. Why? Is it quaint? An interesting sociological experiment?”

Indeed. But there’s a lot of it about. Many Americans are beginning to pick up the strange vibe that, for Barack Obama, governing America is “an interesting sociological experiment,” too. He would doubtless agree that the United States is “the place on earth that, if I needed one, I would call home.” But he doesn’t, not really: It is hard to imagine Obama wandering along to watch a Memorial Day or Fourth of July parade until the job required him to. That’s not to say he’s un-American or anti-American, but merely that he’s beyond all that. Way beyond. He’s the first president to give off the pronounced whiff that he’s condescending to the job — that it’s really too small for him and he’s just killing time until something more commensurate with his stature comes along.

And so the Gulf spill was an irritation, but he dutifully went through the motions of flying in to be photographed looking presidentially concerned. As he wearily explained to Matt Lauer, “I was meeting with fishermen down there, standing in the rain, talking . . . ” Good grief, what more do you people want? Alas, he’s not a good enough actor to fake it. So the more desperately he butches up the rhetoric — “Plug the damn hole!”; “I know whose ass to kick” — the more pathetically unconvincing it all sounds.

No doubt my observations about Obama’s remoteness from the rhythms of American life will be seen by his dwindling band of beleaguered cheerleaders as just another racist, right-wing attempt to whip up the backwoods knuckle-dragging swamp-dwellers of America by playing on their fears of “the other” — the sophisticated, worldly cosmopolitan for whom France is more than a reliable punchline. But in fact my complaint is exactly the opposite: Obama’s postmodern detachment is feeble and parochial. It’s true that he hadn’t seen much of America until he ran for president, but he hadn’t seen much of anywhere else, either. Like most multiculturalists, he’s passed his entire adulthood in a very narrow unicultural environment where your ideological worldview doesn’t depend on anything so tedious as actually viewing the world. The aforementioned Michael Ignatieff, who actually has viewed the world, gets close to the psychology in his response to criticisms of him for spending so much time abroad. Deploring such “provincialism,” he replied: “They say it makes me less of a Canadian. It makes me more of a Canadian.”

Well, yes, you can see what he’s getting at. Today, to be an educated citizen of a mature Western democracy — Canada or Germany, England or Sweden — is not to feel Canadian or German, English or Swedish, heaven forbid, but rather to regard oneself as a citoyen du monde. Obviously, if being “more Canadian” requires one literally to be a Harvard professor or a BBC TV host or an essayist for the Guardian, then very few actual Canadians would pass the test. What he really means is that in a post-national, post-modern Western world, the definition of “Canadian” (and Dutch and Belgian and Irish) is how multicultural and globalized you feel. The U.N., Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Bono: these are the colors a progressive, worldly Westerner nails to his mast. You don’t need to go anywhere, or do anything: You just need to pick up the general groove, which you can do very easily at almost any college campus.

This Barack Obama did brilliantly. A man who speaks fewer languages than the famously moronic George W. Bush, he has nevertheless grasped the essential lingo of the European transnationalist: Continental leaders strike attitudes rather than effect action — which is frankly beneath them. One thinks of the insistence a few years ago by Louis Michel, then Belgian foreign minister, that the so-called European Rapid Reaction Force “must declare itself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability.” As even the Washington Post drily remarked, “Apparently in Europe this works.”

Apparently. Thus, Barack Obama: He declared himself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability. But, if it works for the EU, why not America? Like many of his background here and there, Obama is engaged mostly by abstractions and generalities. Indeed, he is the very model of a modern major generalist. He has grand plans for “the environment” — all of it, wherever it may be. Why should the great eco-Gulliver be ensnared by some Lilliputian oil spill lapping round his boots? He flew in to Cairo to give one of the most historically historic speeches in history to the Muslim world. Why should such a colossus lower his visionary gaze to contemplate some no-account nickel-’n’-dime racket like the Iranian nuclear program? With one stroke of his pen, he has transformed the health care of 300 million people. But I suppose if there’s some killer flu epidemic or a cholera outbreak in New Mexico, you losers will be whining at Obama to do something about that, too.

In recent months, a lot of Americans have said to me that they had no idea the new president would feel so “weird.” But, in fact, he’s not weird. True, he’s not, even in Democratic terms, a political figure — as, say, Clinton or Biden are. Instead, he’s the product of the broader culture: There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism. As someone once said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” When you’ve spent that long waiting in line for yourself, it’s bound to be a disappointment.

Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2010 Mark Steyn.



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: gilbertandsullivan; iran; marksteyn; multiculturalism; obama; piratesofpenzance; steyn
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1 posted on 06/12/2010 10:15:34 AM PDT by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Brilliant stuff, that Steyn. Especially the last line.


2 posted on 06/12/2010 10:22:47 AM PDT by Ultra Sonic 007 (To view the FR@Alabama ping list, click on my profile!)
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To: Ultra Sonic 007

Steyn - always the best


3 posted on 06/12/2010 10:28:02 AM PDT by RightGeek (FUBO and the donkey you rode in on)
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To: neverdem






. . . just sayin'.

4 posted on 06/12/2010 10:29:53 AM PDT by Jeff Chandler (Judas Iscariot - the first social justice advocate. John 12:3-6)
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To: knews_hound
The very model of a modern Major Generalist

There's a blog called The very model of a modern Major Generalist. Go figure.

5 posted on 06/12/2010 10:31:39 AM PDT by neverdem (Xin loi minh oi)
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To: neverdem
One thinks of the insistence a few years ago by Louis Michel, then Belgian foreign minister, that the so-called European Rapid Reaction Force “must declare itself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability.” As even the Washington Post drily remarked, “Apparently in Europe this works.”

Apparently. Thus, Barack Obama: He declared himself operational without such a declaration being based on any true capability.


This is so very true.
6 posted on 06/12/2010 10:35:11 AM PDT by aruanan
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To: neverdem

Another gem by Mark Steyn.


7 posted on 06/12/2010 10:38:35 AM PDT by SmartInsight (Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. ~ G. J. Nathan)
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To: neverdem

I realized something today. I’ve been grocery shopping now during every presidency since Nixon. As I wait in line, I read the headlines on the tabloids. OK, maybe I wasn’t doing that until Carter or Reagan but still, a long time. Every president has had to suffer, just like any other celebrity, from stupid headlines... for example, GHW Bush and Barbara were on the verge of breaking up. GHW was having affairs, Clinton of course, we got a lot on him in those headlines and George W. was going on drinking binges and Laura was always ready to leave him etc.

Since the first month or two of this administration, however, there’s nothing, nada, zip. BO seems to have accomplished what even the A listers in Hollywood could not - a blackout on coverage of him and his by the tabloids. scary.


8 posted on 06/12/2010 10:41:14 AM PDT by Mercat
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To: neverdem
There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism.

He's hit it right on the head (of course): the reason Obama is so desperately *boring* (among his other problems) is that he's not knowledgable about or interested in anything past the end of his own nose.

9 posted on 06/12/2010 10:41:39 AM PDT by Tax-chick (Be nice to venomous snakes. They only want to eat a mouse!)
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To: neverdem

I think Steyn might be giving Obama too much credit. The guy is trying to fake his way through being President. The aloofness comes from his trying to look like he easily knows what he’s doing when he has no clue. He is overcompensating with an outward look of coolness and competence because he is in way over his head, and he knows it.


10 posted on 06/12/2010 11:01:13 AM PDT by cdcdawg
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To: neverdem
He’s the first president to give off the pronounced whiff that he’s condescending to the job — that it’s really too small for him and he’s just killing time until something more commensurate with his stature comes along.

I’m thinking shoveling $hit out of pigsties for the month of July ought to be about right.

11 posted on 06/12/2010 11:02:31 AM PDT by TLI ( ITINERIS IMPENDEO VALHALLA)
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To: neverdem
...he’s the product of the broader culture: There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism...

Barack Obama came from no where (relatively speaking), is not anywhere near qualified to be President, and by his behavior and what little we do know of his past history has some serious personal issues. His various personal issues have been speculated and discussed elsewhere on various threads on FreeRepublic.

To me, Barack Obama was obviously built up and put in power to be the President of the United States by very powerful interests who feel that they can control him.

That in itself is a frightening thought. But to me the even more sobering thought is that he got elected by the American voters. I don't see the problem so much with Barack Obama as with all the people who voted for him and this Hope and Change thing.

For with this attitude prevalent among the American people, (even though many people don't think that way) if it were not specifically Barack Obama as President, it would be someone else like him.

As the last lines of Mark Steyn's put it... "...he's the product of the broader culture " in America today.

12 posted on 06/12/2010 11:05:36 AM PDT by Screaming_Gerbil (...he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one... Luke 22:36)
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To: Mercat

Very good point,and yes, it is very, very scary.


13 posted on 06/12/2010 11:07:21 AM PDT by kabumpo (Kabumpo)
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To: Jeff Chandler

Ira, didn’t you used to wear dresses?
Just sayin’..........(delivered in the spirit of good fun,
but couldn’t find the right emoticon.....)


14 posted on 06/12/2010 11:11:49 AM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Every election is like an advance auction sale of stolen goods"--H.L.Mencken)
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To: neverdem

Great Steyn!


15 posted on 06/12/2010 11:14:40 AM PDT by PaleoBob
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To: Dr. Eckleburg; P-Marlowe; Alamo-Girl; betty boop
There are millions of people like Barack Obama, the eternal students of a vast lethargic transnational campus for whom global compassion and the multicultural pose are merely the modish gloss on a cult of radical grandiose narcissism. As someone once said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” When you’ve spent that long waiting in line for yourself, it’s bound to be a disappointment.

What a gift Steyn has for boiling things down to a few shattering lines. He has just reduced liberalism to its core.

16 posted on 06/12/2010 11:15:38 AM PDT by xzins (Retired Army Chaplain and proud of it. Those who truly support our troops pray for their victory!)
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To: Mercat

We must shop in different supermarkets.
The coverage is lighter on Obama, and Michelle,
(usually centering on some elusive ‘other woman’)
but there hasn’t been a total blackout.
Maybe it seems that way because there’s so much STILL
on the other side, the commemerative ‘special edition’ side
of PR crap that’s all supposed to be ‘collectible’.


17 posted on 06/12/2010 11:16:33 AM PDT by supremedoctrine ("Every election is like an advance auction sale of stolen goods"--H.L.Mencken)
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To: Ultra Sonic 007
Brilliant stuff, that Steyn. Especially the last line.

Yeah, that one grabbed me as well. Spot on!

18 posted on 06/12/2010 11:19:56 AM PDT by Oatka ("A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves." –Bertrand de Jouvenel)
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To: Ultra Sonic 007

The last line is priceless. Steyn is always 5*.


19 posted on 06/12/2010 11:24:16 AM PDT by bboop (We don't need no stinkin' VAT)
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To: xzins
Amen. And yet all those many narcissists aren't dancing by themselves. They've been invited to the prom by a specific, determined and vast entity who's calling the tune.

History isn't haphazard. History is controlled, just like everything else.

It's one reason why the religion of free will is proclaimed throughout the world -- to train us to think we're doing it for (and to) ourselves.

20 posted on 06/12/2010 11:44:28 AM PDT by Dr. Eckleburg ("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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