tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8512362.post7353054968677206000..comments2024-03-10T13:59:19.230-04:00Comments on xpostfactoid: A ringing call to pragmatismAndrew Sprunghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17601269968798865106noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8512362.post-56329942666553827612011-06-23T21:16:53.515-04:002011-06-23T21:16:53.515-04:00(meant America's role as world power was still...(meant America's role as world power was still still only a "vision of the future" in Lincoln's day)CK MacLeodhttp://ckmacleod.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8512362.post-64353280518574429902011-06-23T20:24:48.279-04:002011-06-23T20:24:48.279-04:00Well, sure, the confidence in the capacity for ren...Well, sure, the confidence in the capacity for renewal isn't as deep. The two underlying predicaments are at best only roughly comparable: It's like the difference between a teenager recovering from a serious injury and a middle-aged man coping with a chronic complaint - only more so. Both are medical conditions, but, in the best of circumstances, assuming both recover, the teenager will have a whole life ahead, the middle-aged man will still be a middle-aged man. <br /><br />If Obama's predicament is from some perspective as profound as Lincon's, it's on account of America's world-historical significance, as realized concretely over the last 100 or so years and still a vision of the future. It does matter very much how we manage our maturity, and not only to ourselves, but any great renewal neither can nor ought to be ours alone. It may take a while yet for our leaders and intellectuals to develop a way of discussing the matter in some other language than the panicky and apocalyptic one that seems to serve us better through the end of the 20th Century, but may now be a useless and decayed linguistic institution (light allusion to Fukuyama there).CK MacLeodhttp://ckmacleod.com/noreply@blogger.com