Deconstructing Obama, Pt. 1: Building a Narrative
[This is the first of an open-ended, ongoing series I plan to have about Barack Obama and what may or may not motivate him. I think he makes a fascinating figure, regardless of whether or not you believe in his politics. I think he is an extremely cunning and Machiavellian figure with methods that, once deconstructed, will be very instructive to anyone interested in human nature. This series will go on for as long as I have insights to make about Obama, but will not be the exclusive focus of this blog.]
I had a lot of debates with my high IQ friends during this election about Barack Obama. Many of them would take apart the logical and economic fallacies of Obama’s proposals, give examples of why they wouldn’t work, point out the contradictions and inconsistencies, and poke other holes in his points. I kept responding to them that their high IQ was actually an obstacle for them in analyzing the race because truly high IQ people have chosen their sides and ideologies early in the game. After all, both candidates laid out their agendas very early in the game, either on their campaign websites, their political careers before the election or in their stump speeches. Most of these much-sought after “undecideds” or “moderates” are simply not that intellectually engaged in the process, because if they were they’d have made a decision already. The key to these people is not to inundate them with more facts, because that is a waste. There are already more than enough facts out there for them to make a decision on. The key to win these people over is to switch from focusing on content, like facts and policy, and focus on context arguments, like enthusiasm, charisma, emotional connection, pointing out personal and professional associations, and likeability.
Keep in mind I’m not calling these undecideds stupid. Although I think many of them actually were stupid, there were also many intellectuals that were tired of focusing on logic and facts and were looking for someone that would engage them emotionally
This is the beauty of Obama, he perfectly understood the power of context over content. When his informercial came out, a friend of mine went into an in-depth refutation of it, declared it a failure for being too pessimistic and showing economic illiteracy. I told him none of that mattered because Obama’s real power lay in his context framing and style. He needed to turn off his high-IQ instincts of engaging everything rationally and realize that the content was irrelevant. It was about the soaring rhetoric, the cinemtography, the drama, the characters, the narrative, the music that pulled on the heart strings…he needed to judge it as a movie critic and not as an intellectual. And from that perspective, the informercial worked.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Obama’s style and what it reminded me of. One thing I’ve gathered from reading his biography is that he is masterful not in any significant grasp of policy, but in understanding narrative. I can’t remember exactly where I read it, but a book I read long ago advised that the best way to influence is not through dry recitations of facts, figures and studies (which is great for high IQ types arguing with other high IQ types but not for reaching the masses) but instead to reframe the facts in an engaging narrative. This was the strength of Reagan, he had the free-market content to engage intellectuals, and the soaring rhetoric to engage those in the masses who weren’t especially intellectually curious. Obama on the other hand has taken this technique beyond Reagan by almost eschewing content completely except for some vague class warfare and race warfare sentiments here and there. He’s gotten by almost exclusively on soaring rhetoric and creating a narrative for himself, and he’s using archetypes proven to resonate with people to do it. Most successful politicians were the ones who were able to strike a perfect balance of content vs. context. Obama’s rise on the other hand is the ultimate victory of context over content.
Most Presidents have written books before or during their elections, but they have usually been policy books. Obama wrote two books that were not just narratives, autobiographies describing his struggles with class and race and not much else. No sophisticated policy arguments, no nuanced intellectual viewpoints, just personal narrative. His autobiography Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
A Byronic hero exhibits several characteristic traits, and in many ways he can be considered a rebel. The Byronic hero does not possess “heroic virtue” in the usual sense; instead, he has many dark qualities. With regard to his intellectual capacity, self-respect, and hypersensitivity, the Byronic hero is “larger than life,” and “with the loss of his titanic passions, his pride, and his certainty of self-identity, he loses also his status as [a traditional] hero” (Thorslev 187).
He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile of some kind. It does not matter whether this social separation is imposed upon him by some external force or is self-imposed. Byron’s Manfred, a character who wandered desolate mountaintops, was physically isolated from society, whereas Childe Harold chose to “exile” himself and wander throughout Europe. Although Harold remained physically present in society and among people, he was not by any means “social.”
Often the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a particular issue. He also has emotional and intellectual capacities, which are superior to the average man. These heightened abilities force the Byronic hero to be arrogant, confident, abnormally sensitive, and extremely conscious of himself. Sometimes, this is to the point of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself (Thorslev 197). In one form or another, he rejects the values and moral codes of society and because of this he is often unrepentant by society’s standards. Often the Byronic hero is characterized by a guilty memory of some unnamed sexual crime. Due to these characteristics, the Byronic hero is often a figure of repulsion, as well as fascination.
More on the Byronic Hero can be found here:
The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of Lord Byron, characterised by his ex-lover Lady Caroline Lamb as being “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.[1] The Byronic hero first appears in Byron’s semi-autobiographical epic narrative poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812-18). The Byronic hero typically exhibits the following characteristics:[2][3]
- high level of intelligence and perception
- cunning and able to adapt
- sophisticated and educated
- self-critical and introspective
- mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
- struggling with integrity
- power of seduction and sexual attraction
- social and sexual dominance
- emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness
- a distaste for social institutions and norms
- being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw
- “dark” attributes not normally associated with a hero
- disrespect of rank and privilege
- a troubled past
- cynicism
- arrogance
- self-destructive behaviour“
The Byronic Hero is immensely powerful with women, and usually just about any fictional work that is immensely popular with women has a Byronic hero as its protaganist, from Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (Signet Classics)
to the vampire Lestat in Ann Rice’s works to the character Edward in the new hit movie Twilight, based on a popular novel Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)
In Obama’s bio, he mentions early on that his grandfather had a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends & Influence People
The other source of Obama’s power I think comes from the book 48 Laws of Power, which I will demonstrate in the next part, which can be found here.
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Do you think he strikes the public as Byronic? Most people have not read his book, so I’m referring only to how his public image strikes people. I hate that term Kennedy-esque, which was thrown around incessantly during the campaign, but it reflects the general view of him among his biggest supporters as being a fresh, young, idealistic, golden-boy type yada yada yada. Charismatic yes, but more in the straight-forward, idealistic, ivy-league student body president sort of way not in a darker, seething with inner conflict, cunning Byronic way.
It’s not apparent to me that his fans are attracted to him as a Byronic hero as they wouldn’t necessarily agree that this persona describes him. The view of him as Machiavellian, mysteriously opaque, full of psychological sturm and drang is concentrated among his opponents, due to their inclination to view him with a jaundiced eye and actually dig deeply into his past & writings.
I agree with your assessment that providing a compelling narrative is what wins elections. This being said, I think you are off-base to conclude that Obama only used context and not content.
First, Obama is an intellectual powerhouse, on the level of Bill Clinton. There’s no debate here. His second book, The Audacity of Hope, is primarily policy prescriptions, NOT narratives. But more impressive than his intellect is his wisdom — the ability to put himself in other people’s shoes, to value the merit in opposing arguments, and focus on common solutions rather than push for policy that may be right but can’t generate consensus (e.g., getting away from the pro-choice, pro-life debate and focusing on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies).
Second, the media tried to portray him as a lightweight, a celebrity with little substance. But as someone who watched ALL the debates during the primaries and generals, I believe that Obama knew his shit. In fact, during the Texas and Ohio primaries, Obama and Hillary talked about health care nuances at such a minutaie level that I have to believe that most people were just bored.
Obama’s master stroke is that he’s actually a dull, policy wonk who’s convinced people/media that he’s a charismatic rockstar. He’s so nondescript that SNL can’t even come up with a good parody of him.
Ultimately, Obama has both narrative and substance in spades and that’s why he’ll be the most transformative president of our lifetimes.
A reporter mentioned on the radio that, in contrast to his stage persona, Obama in person is dry and boring. McCain OTOH was dry on stage (eg reads from the teleprompter) but hot-tempered in person.
You’re totally correct that Obama didn’t deal with people in terms of ideas and concepts. I’d say that he engaged people’s emotions and especially their sense of tribalness or groupness. If you think about it, engaging that emotion is one of the services that a head of state provides. McCain (and Hillary) totally fail to provide that emotion that people want to get from their leaders. Hillary came across as someone who desperately wanted to be the president. McCain came across as the geeky kid running for class president who doesn’t realize he has no chance. Obama came across as a baptist preacher whipping his congregation up into a religious frenzy. He did NOT come across as a war leader firing “us” up to defeat “them”. He was all “we”.
From Obama’s stump speech with cynical additions for contrast:
Do you guys know of any good conservative books on the u.s. economy, and finance. I hear of conservatives swearing up and down that we are in a mere “transitory state” and that trickle down economy works……if only we would give it more time…..say 50 years at least.
I really want some conservative fiscal policy titles, especially ones tht have real life examples where everybody (who actually worked) benefitted from it.
First off Ba1anced, it’s officially called “Supply Side Economics,” not Trickle Down Economics. That is a derogatory name for it created by Democrats that the media often uses, but no conservative economists ever actually call it that. So keep in mind, the moment you see a piece discussing “Trickle Down Economics,” the mere usage of that phrase is a major indicator that you are probably reading a piece written by someone who is biased against it and looking to discredit it.
Anyway, if you want to read a good conservative economics book defending supply side economics and showing them to work, try Thomas Sowell’s Basic Economics to start off with.
Use wikipedia.
If you want real world examples, contrast Russia with, say, Finland over 1917-1990. Contrast Hong Kong with China over 1949-1976. Contrast Singapore with Indonesia since 1959. Contrast Chile with Argentina since 1985. Contrast East and West Germany. Contrast Estonia with Belarus since 1991.
People tend to think about economic matters in terms of fairly splitting up the pie. Once you take growth into account, the size of the pie matters far more. Just compare England in 2008 with England in 1808. The poorest 10% could have their wealth and incomes doubled or halved and it would be a trivial difference compared to the overall growth in that period.
T — great post and soemthing to ponder –
Men HATE the Byronic Hero. Now women will always stick with that, particularly single women, but men hate that guy and assuaging Male jealousy is a huge task for any leader. Obama can’t do it, and is likely to lose men in all directions as soon as he has to make decisions.
For example, he can save Detroit and keep those guys working, or go Green and make status-happy single Women happy about saving the Polar Bears. He cannot do both. So either way he’s going to lose something, and his positioning himself as a Byronic Hero or the Return of JFK means someone is going to lose and become his enemy. Period.
Also, circumstances like nuclear proliferation are going to push him hard. He will look monumnentally stupid for saying he wants to kill defense projects and unilaterally disarm with nukes as a good example (women love this) after a city is nuked by a terrorist group “borrowing” one from Pakistan or Iran. His political opponents will play and replay those words and make him look weak and the “woman’s” candidate which he already is sort-of.
Quick how many guys like Justin Timberlake and Leonardo DiCaprio?
Any guy that plays Lord Byron too much makes himself dangerous male enemies. Obama will make them in spades. And no matter how much Katie Couric and the View love him, he has to produce bonafide results to lots of blue collar guys or he is gone.
Somewhat OT: the reason “Dark Knight” sucked was the revenge aspect of the hero (Batman) was not worked out nor was the Joker explained. Some of the comics did a better job — the Joker is both afraid of and desirous of death which is why he both offers “absurd jokes” to Death to get spared and goads Batman or other superheros to kill him and therefore in death become “immortal.”
Batman is a figure of revenge, an ordinary man outwardly who terrifies villains in secret. That’s revenge. With an explicit moral code.
Women don’t get revenge, not in the male way. Revenge movies never do well with them. While guys get it very well. I suspect the fact that so little in the way of revenge-themed movies has been offered that even Nolan’s poorly executed revenge movie did well.
As for Obama, should disaster strike, he must satisfy men’s desire for revenge (if not the least of which is preventing a future attack). Women always say revenge never works because for them it does not but for men it does. Women’s power lies in beauty, and compassion, so revenge is irrelevant. Men’s power lies in status, and social standing, so revenge is critical not the least of which is upending an enemy and claiming his place.
Gotcha T. I will buy this book. I have something for you to check out as well. It’s a crash course on our economy and our dependence on debt to survive. Very compelling. Enjoy.
http://goldsilver.com/crash_co.....e5ab3edcce
Ba1anced, I’ve actually been looking for an online guide to gold and silver for the past few weeks! This is perfect! Thanks.
“. . . realize that the content was irrelevant.” Wonderful point. It’s like pop music. No one knows what the lyrics are or what the song is about, but we love the music and sing along. Obama understands this. Don’t get me wrong, I support him, but he seems to be the only politician nowadays that connects with people where they are and still has the intellect to deal on a higher level.
I didn’t read any of the Obama’s books. Well, I’m even not from USA, so that’s why I didn’t even know he wrote any books. But I like Obama, and I surely will find his books online to have them read. I think that he is able to make changes necessary for USA and world to settle down and cool their heads. I see a great potential in Obama, and knowing that he puts his trust on people and science instead on god, is really encouraging. Thumbs up for Obama!