Charlie Rose

interloco  06/28/2011 04:13 PM Report

It is one thing not to agree with what James Kloppenberg has to say here about Obama; it is quite another to write a book that captures the kind of depth that he is able to concisely convey across the broad spectrum of ideas that he covers in his texts. Personally, I have the utmost respect for Kloppenberg's work and now, through his text, I have a renewed respect for Obama and what he attempting to do for the American people.

The haters will hate but that does not mean one should give up or that one is necessarily wrong, stupid or misinformed. It simply means that some people do not like it; this is likely because their perception of the "common good" or interests in material matters are vastly different. The intellectual history of philosophical pragmatism is uniquely American.

If you don't like what James Kloppenberg has to say, I challenge you to go write your own book on Obama and see if you can get it right. Maybe then, you can become the chair of history at Harvard and get your own twenty minutes in the spotlight on Charlie Rose.

Good luck.

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bnap  11/11/2010 04:53 PM Report

Transcript:

CHARLIE ROSE: And during the campaign he never argued for a public

option.

JAMES KLOPPENBERG: Exactly. So this is a fantasy that I think those

of us on the left projected on to him that he never embraced himself.

Instead of doing what Clinton did and saying very early, "this is what

we’re going to do," he wanted to see what would happen as the legislative

process unfolded.

End Transcript.

Please Professor do the research, a simple goggle "obama campaigns for public option" will lead to the many credible sources which correct your incredible statement and who should put you over their knee. Many campaign videos of Obama on u-tube also conflict with your fantastic claim of fantasy. Your arguments bring to mind the meaning of what "is is" and subscribe meaning to ambiguity in your interpretation of the Obama enigma.

anne4444  11/11/2010 04:40 PM Report

Dear future president of the United States:

TO YOUR BENEFITS: Please let your doctor check your heart and your skin. You need a strong heart and very thick skin in order to stay alive during your presidency.

TO OUR BENEFITS: Please pay attention to your brain. You need a lot of intelligence in order to avoid confusion. You can easily be pushed into a dark tunnel, land in a jungle and lost in the mud.

If you don’t cry during your term, you are already a lucky one.

REMant  11/11/2010 11:36 AM Report

Thia interview recapped the reporting in Oct 27's NYT on a pre-release talk of this subject, and comes under the category of book tours. There is no doubt, however, of the professor's sympathies. I once bought a book - one of VERY few he has published - of his essays and I was sorry I did. It had the same sort of cover blurb as this one. From that I would say he is less explicating Obama's books, than projecting his views on him. Given his predilections, there is nothing unusual in that, but there may, nevertheless, be some truth in it. Kloppenberg calls himself a pragmatist, but he is merely an old-fashioned Thomist-Jesuitical sort. A defender of rhetoric, artifice and casuistry. A finagler and multiculturalist. Politically correct along the lines of Dahl's interest group theory. The kind of thing we commonly call "political." Not much philosophical about it, except the "sophical" part. It is self-interest without the enlightenment. Actually pretty much what the Jacksonians thought, and what Riesman called "other-directed." He has a good handle on this current, which, like Garry Wills, has tried to re-interpret pretty much everything in intellectual history from a "Catholic" point of view. The philosophy of Locke, of Jonathan Edwards, of Tocqueville, of civic republicanism, etc, have been distorted to bring them into line. It is curious that this has in no way the purview only of "liberals." But I spent some time with pragmatism as a student, and, as far as I can see, Prof Kloppenberg doesn't understand James or Pierce much at all, which is typical, I think, of historians, who began studying history at the wrong end, as he did, with the Progressives, and then look to justify their presuppositions. The first thing I would say about Pragmatism, is that it has little or no connection with any part of American thought, tho the notion was de rigueur in the climate of Merle Curti and Louis Hartz in which he grew up. Neither, fortunately, does Kloppenberg, but I pity his students, altho perhaps I shouldn't. Students aren't what they used to be. He, himself, seems to spend more time networking than thinking. He also managed, I see, to avoid military service during the Vietnam War.

The British "constitution" is, in fact, far more amendable than our written one. It is the latter, which is new-fangled. It is, however, no less that despite its origins. The reason why we have had so much trouble getting the European social-democratic program enacted is because, unlike Europe, we have had less need for it, in addition to lacking the requisite institutions. In many ways it is a feudal throwback, made necessary only by the continuation of feudal conditions. BTW, we remember Mein Kampf, and the League of Nations, too.