Posted on 10/27/2010 11:15:44 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
In New York City last week to give a standing-room-only lecture about his forthcoming intellectual biography, “Reading Obama: Dreams, Hopes, and the American Political Tradition,” Mr. Kloppenberg explained that he sees Mr. Obama as a kind of philosopher president, a rare breed that can be found only a handful of times in American history.
“There’s John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Quincy Adams, then Abraham Lincoln and in the 20th century just Woodrow Wilson,” he said.
To Mr. Kloppenberg the philosophy that has guided President Obama most consistently is pragmatism, a uniquely American system of thought developed at the end of the 19th century by William James, John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. It is a philosophy that grew up after Darwin published his theory of evolution and the Civil War reached its bloody end. More and more people were coming to believe that chance rather than providence guided human affairs, and that dogged certainty led to violence.
Pragmatism maintains that people are constantly devising and updating ideas to navigate the world in which they live; it embraces open-minded experimentation and continuing debate. “It is a philosophy for skeptics, not true believers,” Mr. Kloppenberg said.
Those who heard Mr. Kloppenberg present his argument at a conference on intellectual history at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center responded with prolonged applause. “The way he traced Obama’s intellectual influences was fascinating for us, given that Obama’s academic background seems so similar to ours,” said Andrew Hartman, a historian at Illinois State University who helped organize the conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Communists and socialists like Obama are great pragmatists. They’ll use whatever principles they can get their hands on, as long as it subjugates the masses and brings them more power.
Pragmatism = “the ends justify the means.”
}:-)4
You forgot to add a “barf alert” to the title. Yeah, Obama’s such a genius he advocates hiking taxes on small businesses, entrepreneurs and investors in the middle of an economic malaise. BRILLIANT!
“Study of Obama Finds a Pragmatic Intellectual”
“Intellectual”? Incredible. Can’t find an single thing smart about this illegal alien who lives in our White House. Everything has to be scripted for him or he gets nervous and babbles like a kid. I’m still totally confused about his “intellect” as being anything other than average to below average. Affirmative action does not make one smart.
This has got to be a joke.
Any questions?
That would explain why ObaMao pushed through the health care fiasco despite growing public opposition, nationalized two of our three domestic car companies and continues to pursue reckless Marxist-socialist policies despite the mounting evidence that they don't work. Well, wouldn't it?
First ‘intellectual’ in politics that can’t complete a coherent sentence without a teleprompter. Give me a break.
Heehehehhehe. The Taupe Dope’s followers are as delusional as he is.
appropriate!
I seem to recall a joke about the world-famous "Kloppenberg diamond".
It seems that it had a curse on it.
What was the curse?
Mrs. Kloppenberg.
Thank you - I'll be here all week.
You know, after Ted Kennedy died I had hopes that the worship of American Divinity (JFK and relatives) might come to an end. But there remains the risk that Obama will be talked about in awed tones for decades to come. We need to take him down. Hard.
“The Taupe Dope”
____________________________
LMAO!
Obama is a a philosophical pragmatist???????????
All this proves is that Mr. Kloppenberg is delusional, and unable to discern facts from fantasy.
Speaking truth to power, 2010:
Your eyes!! your lips!!! come with me to the Casbah!!!
Kloppenberg = Imbecile on the same level as the fools who followed Jim Jones down to their deaths in Guyana back in ‘78.
You got it wrong. It was Mr. Kloppenberg whom she said was the curse. (Although I recall his name being Kloppman).
It is a bad joke on the US. (o)bama is not anything near a pragmatist. He is the poster child for narrow minded inflexable thought.
Unbelieveable, isn’t it? “Pragmatic” and “intellectual” are among the LAST words I would use to describe The One. Where is the evidence of intellect??? His constant reliance on the Teleprompter? His numerous gaffes when he’s off script? His complete lack of understanding of economics, business, or executive leadership? His ignorance of American history? Why has Mr. Intellect never released any academic records? Almost certainly had his books ghost-written for him. Apparently did virtually nothing at Harvard Law Review.
Leave it to a Harvard professor to have his head so far up his posterior.
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