Obama the fantasy construct
Now that Obama has been elected, I think we need a systematic way to distinguish the real Obama from the fantasy construct who occupies so many people’s minds.
You know what I’m talking about, of course: the tendency to attribute to Obama any and all qualities deemed desirable by the fantasist. Thus we have Obama the Pacifist (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama supports a “strong military” and has promised to invade our allies if necessary), Obama the Feminist (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama is personally sexist and ran an explicitly misogynistic smear campaign against his two female opponents), Obama the Lightworker (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama is a Chicago machine politician whose campaign was so dirty and corrupt it reminded long-time Democrats of Nixon and Rove), Obama the Gay Rights Advocate (despite the fact that, in reality, Obama opposes same-sex marriage and chose to associate his campaign with Donnie McClurkin), and so on.
I’m thinking about this today because of Melissa Etheridge’s remarkable statement about the passing of Proposition 8, the anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative in California:
…I tell myself to take a breath, okay take another one… Obama has been elected president. This crazy fearful insanity will end soon. This great state and this great country of ours will finally come to the understanding that there is no “them”. We are one. We are united. What you do to someone else you do to yourself. That “judge not, lest ye yourself be judged” are truthful words and not Christian rhetoric.
She seems to believe that Obama’s election is in some way antithetical to the passing of Proposition 8 — even though Obama himself opposes gay marraige, and even though it was Obama voters who pushed Proposition 8 to victory.
But clearly Etheridge isn’t talking about the real Obama. It’s doubtful she even knows who he is. She’s talking about Fantasy Obama, the pacifist feminist lightworking Savior.
So I think we need an orthographic convention to indicate when we’re referring to this fantastic being. Perhaps we could put his name in quotes: “Obama.” Or we could preface his name with an asterisk, the way linguists do when they’re indicating a reconstructed form: *Obama. As in, “Even though President Obama gave the order today to bomb Pakistan, I know that *Obama is a pacifist who would never agree to something like that!”
Just a thought.
51 Responses to “Obama the fantasy construct”
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polly styrene says:
I’m just going with the Obamessiah
November 12th, 2008 at 5:28 am EST -
myiq2xu says:
Since the fantasy construct is the exact opposite of the real Obama, perhaps amabO is the appropriate name.
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kenoshaMarge says:
None of the names I call him are repeatable. So I just stick with Obama. Just Obama. And people tell me that the contempt in my voice when I say the name says exactly what I feel.
Since that doesn’t come through when typed, just imagine if you will, someone saying that name with contempt dripping from, hanging from, oozing from every letter. Close enough
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Ali says:
Hah, that’s funny. The inverse seems to have been applied to Sarah Palin by the democratic party and media. As in Sarah Palin the real person and candidate supports comprehensive sex education while *Sarah Palin the ding-a-ling is abstinence-only and this is why her daughter Bristol is pregnant.
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Cyn says:
I am fascinated with what makes one person see through the media created sham and another person fall to their knees in adulation.
What makes us tick? What are the differences in people that so sharply divide their perception of Obama?
I would prefer not to believe I’m just a jaded old crone.
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slythwolf says:
I think there are people who are willing to deceive themselves and people who are not. For instance my husband, if I say any bad thing about something John McCain said or did, all through this election had no trouble believing me, and believed out of hand all the Palin smears. But quote him some offensive thing Obama had said about women and he wanted seventeen mainstream news sources with perfect reputations or he would pat my hand and patiently explain that it wasn’t that I was lying, but that the people I heard it from were exaggerating or making it up.
I wonder if it’s just that our culture gives people the need to clearly delineate good and evil in their minds, and once they pick the Good Guy and the Bad Guy (or, as seems more prevalent these days, Woman), they literally cannot comprehend anything that would upset this view.
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anna says:
Obama did oppose Prop 8.
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anna says:
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Violet says:
I wonder if it’s just that our culture gives people the need to clearly delineate good and evil in their minds, and once they pick the Good Guy and the Bad Guy (or, as seems more prevalent these days, Woman), they literally cannot comprehend anything that would upset this view.
Is that our culture, or is it human nature?
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Jean says:
I’d like to say that it’s not because we’re jaded, old crones but I may be wrong.
I’ve been conned by salesmen and smooth-talking suitors before. I’ve watched a few televangelists at work and I’m not awed by being in close contact with capable, well-spoken blacks, having lived and worked with them for my entire life.
It clicked when Obama did so poorly in the early debates but was marveled at by all and sundry.
Maybe you’ve never bought whole life insurance that you didn’t need from a gorgeous blonde man who, truly, was better looking than Robert Redford in his good days. I have. I looked at Obama and saw that insurance salesman.
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octogalore says:
Anna, while that’s technically true, you have to admit the language used is vague enough to confuse folks looking to him for an example.
eg, from the article you cited: ” I think [Prop 8 is] unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about.”
Do you think most people looking to Obama for an example are going to delve into his constitutionality arguments? They’re going to listen to what he says, and what he say explicitly is: “I am not in favor of gay marriage.” That’s pretty stark.
I agree that his thinking Prop 8 is “unnecessary” is better than him being wholeheartedly “for” it. But let’s not invoke him as a strong “no on 8″ spokesperson.
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ElleR says:
Violet, This is such an interesting and perplexing phenomenon, and one I love to think about.
As to whether or not it is culture or human nature, I would offer that it is both: the human unconscious is made up of archetypes; it is a function of culture to describe them, that is to construct cultural narratives which flesh out abstract, unconscious archetypes, thus creating a cultural symbol which carries all kinds of powerful emotions.
When a candidate manages to match a few salient characteristics to the cultural symbol, the circuit is complete and the public fills in the blanks with the symbol’s characteristics, not the real person’s character, and the rest is history.
Facts which don’t fit the narrative are just not acceptable! This is true for both positive and negative symbols.
My best guess.
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slythwolf says:
Is that our culture, or is it human nature?
I hesitate to call anything human nature. How would we know? Where’s the person who has been raised outside culture that we can point to and say, see, this person does it too, it must just be how humans are.
But I would think it would be our culture, or there wouldn’t be any of us who don’t think that way.
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Alikatze says:
There was an article in Salon the other day that stated that 70% of African Americans in California voted Yes on Prop 8. According to a gay, AA pastor in the article, homosexuality is not accepted in the AA community because of the “emasculation of the black male.” Apparently, anything that “degrades the [black] man’s status as the progenitor” must be opposed.
I realize you have to have access to Salon, but here’s the link to the article,
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Anna Belle says:
Anna, that is crap. From the article you cited:
I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think [Prop 8 is] unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.
It doesn’t matter if he saw it as “unnecessary.” He prefaced that with his agreement on prejudice. And he did not oppose it. He simply called it unnecessary. His opinion is wrong and bigoted. He signaled his agreement with anti-gay bigots loud and clear.
If he was really opposed to it he would have actively campaigned against it, but he couldn’t do that, because that would have been a political risk. If there’s one thing we know about Obama, it’s that he doesn’t take risks. Cowards never do.
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polly styrene says:
Ha ha – the finest example of fence sitting I’ve ever seen.
What makes people believe? Well we’re conditioned to believe something (or more accurately) someONE is going to save us. Obama is a hero from a romantic novel for liberals.He’s the knight on the white charger/superman/the messiah and he’s going to save us all.
Or put another way, when people stop believing in god, they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything.
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Violet says:
slythwolf, of course I agree with you about the unknowability of human nature. But I meant, isn’t this something that humans tend to do across cultures? Perhaps more in some cultures than in others, but I don’t think it’s culturally limited.
Like being stupid or gullible or cruel — not all humans manifest those traits, but some humans do in every known society.
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m Andrea says:
I realize the degree of Obama worship is such that whenever the opposition refers to him in any way derogatory no matter how slight, his supporter’s ears close and their minds go into this defensive mode. At that point they lose the ability to rationally evaluate what was said.
Early on, his supporters slid right into the rabid behavior of Ron Paul supporters, who themselves first reminded me of Star Trekkie fanatics.
But mostly they remind me of children who cannot bear to hear a cross word spoken about their fantasy hero. He is the only thing standing between them and the reality of apocalyptic climate change, global financial ruin, medieval religious fundamentalism take-over, and the end of their chocolate mocha latte supply.
If you do not worship him, they think you must want those events to happen. A good portion of the populace is succeptable to facism right now, because they don’t believe they can survive on their own. They need to see that they can…
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Sis says:
We see Americans as more religious, and hero worshiping, hero creating, than we are. To an extreme. We are uncomfortable with that level of adulation, for anyone. We are generally, embarrassed by it.
We=Canadians.
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Kiuku says:
People are just stupid. I’m sorry. They are just pathetic, dumb.
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Heart says:
Yeah, Violet Socks (and everyone). In some post on my blog somewhere, or in some comment, I said that Obama is a blank slate onto which many are projecting their most cherished dreams, goals, visions, etc., and that that is very scary, and it really is. To a degree that’s about the horrificness of the Bush regime, everybody so thirsty for some kind of anything, they’ll even take salt water if that’s what’s available.
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quixote says:
This comment thread is a perfect example of why we need Violet’s Convention. We desperately need a way to put a name on the mask as different from the man. Thought and language shape each other, and with only one word, we tend to think there’s one reality.
For instance, Obama and Prop 8.
Obama said “marriage is between a man and a woman.” That sound bite was heavily used by yes-on-Prop-H8 in phone campaigns. *Obama would have repudiated that and thundered “that is not what America is about.” Obama said nothing.
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Lori says:
I just think it’s your basic narcissistic daisy chain – the same we’ve seen on the right since Reagan was elected. Candidate X is enlightened and enlightened people support him and the proof of that enlightenment is that they support candidate X. Or something like that – I have to get the equation worked out precisely.
In the 90s, conservatives defined their morality by how much they opposed the Clintons. In the latter 00s, liberals are defining their enlightenment by how much they support Obama. Now, these Obama supporters regard everyone who doesn’t support Obama with the same contempt that the conservatives regarded anyone who didn’t despise the Clintons.
Like conservatives in the 90s, they’re gonna fight tooth and nail to prevent their universe from being shattered because they have found a place to dwell where are the best people.
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cellocat says:
It’s our blessing and our curse, whether it’s human nature or societal. We can see patterns and make deductions based upon our observations of those patterns. But we seem to have developed a childlike emotional need to see patterns everywhere we look, and the simpler the better. We feel we are in the middle of a neverending horrible labyrinth, and we want a shortcut out, so in their minds the Obama worshippers arrange the bricks in the wall into a secret door and don’t notice that they’re bloodying their noses bashing into the wall they think they’re walking through.
Maybe the pattern perception thing is human nature, and the need to see patterns everywhere is cultural.
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cellocat says:
It’s like they want Obama to part the seas and show them the lost city of Atlantis, where we’ll find the technology that will save our planet and everyone (or at least the enlightened ones) can live happily ever after. /snark
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octogalore says:
I had drinks last night with a business friend yesterday who was a strong BHO supporter and previously had been virulently anti-HRC. She said she “had to give it” to HRC that she’d been such a good helper and campaigned so tirelessly for BHO. “Finally she earned my respect,” she said.
Guess I don’t have to say anything further about the irony here.
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ElleR says:
Jon Meacham said today on NPR that the election of 2008 was redemptive, washing us clean of the sins of slavery and racism.
This is what I really do not get.
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Violet says:
This is what I really do not get.
As Germaine Greer said (more or less), we women have no idea how much men hate us.
And we really don’t, even though we try to realize it. But then moments come that really bring home how despised we are. Or at least how invisible we are.
After this election season, after this grotesque bloodbath, for anybody to be celebrating “redemption” is a kick in the face to women. We don’t exist. We’re nothing.
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Yanni Znaio says:
OMG. I just had a realization.
Barack Obama is a latter-day Chauncey Gardener.
(Now you’ve gone and done it! They’ll be calling you a racist any minute now!)
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Iridescence says:
Just like the Right has used right wing fanatical Christians as a “base” for many years, I think Obama’s people now have created a messianic cult-of-personality around him for a similar purpose. I see remarkable similarities in both these groups, in that they think they both think people who disagree with them are not only wrong but evil and have an unwillingness to question authority which they see and coming from a higher “divine” or “enlightened” source.
I think most Obama voters aren’t part of the “true-believer” group and will turn on him if he fails to deliver on at least some of his promises. But it’s frightening to me how the media seems so infested with “true believers”.
Will these people will continue to bend over backwards to excuse their messiah rather than admit they’ve been duped? It seems likely.
It’s very hard to have a working democracy without a free press. Thank goodness for sites like this one that will keep a close and critical eye on the Obama administration. Keep fighting the good fight Violet :)
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Carmonn says:
ElleR, do you remember the John Judis article? Judis basically took HRC to task for running against BO as if he were any other candidate, instead of the transcedent force white guys have deemed him. Translation, Clinton reminds us of the women at our workplaces who make us uncomfortable and threaten our jobs when they should be at home pouring us drinks. There’s nothing historic about her, meanwhile voting for him allows us to pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened and pretend that we’re motivated by something wonderful we perceive in him instead of resentment against people like her.
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julia says:
Why do people believe him? Because they are naive and trusting. In world politics, I give us
first prize in naivete.Anyone knows that a candidate who would really change things would only get into office if the actual situation in this country were radically different. Change never comes from within.
Now the Dems are giving the auto industry $50 billion and talking about a healthcare mandate?!
A mandate is just like auto insuarnce. You have to pay and don’t get paid back; so in essence you pay twice. A mandate is not single-payer, but seeing how naive the public is on Obama, they’ll believe anything and swear that it is.I can just see it now: a white male big business, big pharmeceutical/military/prison industry cabinet.
Goddess save us.
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djmm says:
There are such brilliant posts and commentary here.
I do think some people subconsciously see President-Elect Obama as the second coming of Christ. There was a brilliant sketch based on a man waking up from a coma 8 years from now that made that point, way back in the primaries. After all, for Christians, isn’t Christ supposed to wash away their sins?
I like the asterisk idea. Or we could just put a little TM after his name: Obama™. After all, his alter ego is all marketing fluff. Just my opinion, but I have met a lot of charismatic empty suits in my day. They almost always wreak havoc on lesser mortals.
djmm
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cellocat says:
djmm –
I LOVE the tm. That is hysterical. Thanks for the outright laugh that gave me. Totally right, and appropriate. The DNC sold us inspiration in a package we wanted to see.
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Iridescence says:
Yeah, the TM logo is brilliant and reminds me of something i saw on TV way back during one of the primaries. Some Obama strategist was on one of the news networks talking about their strategy against Hillary and said something like (paraphrasing)”
“Well, you know unlike the Clintons we have a new PRODUCT here and you know when you have a new product you have to work harder to SELL it.”
I remember being totally creeped out that they’d talk about their candidate like a commodity to be sold in such an open way like that.
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Northwest rain says:
Thing is Obama will never ever be able to fulfill the huge expectations of his cult members.
At some point I believe that Obama lost track of who the real Obama is — and even he has bought into the advertising creation.
He is a fragile male — I just read Palin’s interview with Wolf — he asks “are you going to help” Obama. Now why the hell does Obama need so damned much help? So at some point people are getting it — that Obama cannot deliver.
Palin responded nicely — bringing the discussion back to where her strength is and this is energy independence (working toward this goal).
I agree with Violet — and the quote from Greer — about how most women don’t know how much men hate us.
Obama was so in our face with his contempt for women — that it was hard to miss — but his blinded followers continue to deny that he gave Hillary the finger and his sexist statements about Hillary — didn’t happen. Then the old faux feminists jumped into the mud slinging contest against Palin.
My self identity has been challenged this election season — I started the season thinking I was a democrat, liberal, feminist. Turns out that I am none of the above. And my core values have not changed. I’m now an independent — a new feminist (accepting of strong REPUBLICAN women as feminist) accepting that women can have views that are different than my own and they can still be feminists. But I don’t know what a liberal is any more. So perhaps I’m now a moderate. Although my personality profile always comes out as Bohemian (free spirit — non conformist).
I am immune to Obama’s voice (high on the yeck scale for me) and his words are mostly meaningless — just words. He sounds like so many mediocre preachers I heard as a child. Perhaps he wowed so many white liberals & young people — because they didn’t go to evangelistic churches as children — they were deprived of the Fire and Brimstone, depressing rants by smooth talking preacher guys (ALWAYS males). Women are even supposed to be on the same level as males in many evangelistic churches.
Then there is the mind bending techniques he was using in his stump speeches.
The point of my rambling is that when millions of his followers realize that Obama is just a man — not much different than the typical male politician — that he is not a messiah — people are going to be mad, angry and pissed that they got taken by a Chicago con man.
When the post hypnotic suggestion wears off and the cult members realize is as really as stinky as his wife says he is — then we will see buyer’s remorse. My bet is that the honeymoon period will be over by early spring or late winter.
Sexism (sex role stereotyping) is learned behavior — it is part of the American culture. Learned behavior can be changed — but it takes leadership from the top.
I have NO illusions that Obama will take sexism seriously
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kenoshaMarge says:
Melissa Etheridge’s drivel is a sterling example of why I pay no attention to any “celebrity” endorsement.
I can admire their talents without thinking they are any more qualified to endorse a candidate than I am. And when they manage to actually spout such nonsense with a straight face, ala Etheridge, I know I am right to ignore them as they so richly deserve. An idiot is an idiot no matter what they do for a living.
Fawning over ANY politician makes me nauseous.
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DancingOpossum says:
Someone linked to a Matt Stoller piece in which he expresses alarm at some trial names being floated to head Obama’s net neutrality team. Apparently both are strongly tied to anti-neutrality pro-telecom groups. Stoller was alarmed but the comments were particularly revealing: There were a couple who seemed to be having a painful “whuhhhh?” awakening, while the others dismissed it as ugly rumor, because “Obama would never do something like that!” and one even said “Let’s just trust Obama.” LOLOL…even Stoller said it was “hard to imagine” Obama appointing such people–to which one commenter had the one-word response: FISA!
The mental meltdown among Obama’s followers is going to be fascinating to watch. About the only thing that will be, imo, for the next four long years.
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quixote says:
The mental meltdown among Obama’s followers is going to be fascinating to watch.
I hope so. Or, like other commenters have said, they’ll just dig deeper and deeper into denial mode. Blame everyone and anyone except Obama(tm).
(By the way, how do you get the superscript effect? Great idea! I’m using it from now on!)
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qaz says:
I hope so. Or, like other commenters have said, they’ll just dig deeper and deeper into denial mode. Blame everyone and anyone except Obama(tm).
I think the paid bloggers will just be rehired.
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ElleR says:
Violet”As Germaine Greer said (more or less), we women have no idea how much men hate us.”
About 20 years ago, I had the epiphany you and Germaine Greer describe. I suddenly realized that at some level, possibly even an unconscious level, men really despise women. For some reason, I was elated by this discovery (perhaps because suddenly so many things that I had not understood became clear; perhaps because what I had taken personally, I now saw had nothing to do with me).
Naively, I wanted to share the news with my women friends. Needless to say, my new insight was not met with joy. My women’s group almost drummed me out. They were willing to admit that women had problems, but they were not willing to admit that they were despised by their nearest and dearest. This realization is such a bitter pill for women to swallow that they would immolate themselves on the pyre of patriachal society rather than admit to themselves that they will never be fully valued by the society they live in or the men in their lives — many of whom they look up to.
Liberal men can also be incensed when confronted with their true feelings toward women, as they do a very good job hiding them even from themselves. This election has had the effect of “outing” liberal/progressive men for the misogynists they are — and their resentment is palpable. They are mad at us for pointing out their sexism (which they would deny to their dying breath) to them.
Women are invisible; theretore sexism/misogyny doesn’t exist.
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Yanni Znaio says:
quixote says:
(By the way, how do you get the superscript effect? Great idea! I’m using it from now on!)
<sup>superscript text</sup>
Best regards,
YZ
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Yanni Znaio says:
However, if you’re talking about Obama™, another way to do that is by using another HTML symbol:
™ – this gets interpreted as superscript "™"
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ElleR says:
Carmonn: “There’s nothing historic about her, meanwhile voting for him allows us to pat ourselves on the back for being enlightened and pretend that we’re motivated by something wonderful we perceive in him instead of resentment against people like her.”
There certainly seems to be a lot of back patting and self congratulation going on. Perhaps it is because any criticism of Obama translates into criticism of his fans and their pureness of heart which makes it so hard to take.
As to Hillary, the fantasy construct can go both ways, negative as well as positive. Both she and Palin broke some serious rules for female behavior and therefore became objects of scorn — deserving of all the ridicule anyone might want to dish out — regardless of the facts.
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bluelyon says:
To find the ascii code for the trademark symbol, go here: http://www.hypergurl.com/asciisymbols.html
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Yanni Znaio says:
bluelyon:
I know, I know.
™ is mnemonic, in other words, you can remember it fairly easily.
™ isn’t. I’d have to look it up on a regular basis, hence I use the format I can remember. (I know it’s a deprecated tag, but it still works just about everywhere)
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Yanni Znaio says:
qaz says:
I think the paid bloggers will just be rehired.
Go and look at the comments regarding This column at townhall.com
Unless, in the words of Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic” sketch, [they] “could be arguing in their spare time.
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haelig says:
Obama™ is perfect–after all, Ad Age voted Obama as The Marketer of 2008. . . .
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grasshopper says:
Maybe you’ve never bought whole life insurance that you didn’t need from a gorgeous blonde man who, truly, was better looking than Robert Redford in his good days. I have. I looked at Obama and saw that insurance salesman.
This is a great way to put it – I’ve had that feeling right from the beginning, that the guy was nothing more than a slick con artist.
People love a pretty face, and it’s hard not to be captivated by Obama’s megawatt smile. He’s basically a beauty queen. (And his intelligence allows him to capitalize on that without much apparent effort.)
An op-ed cartoon yesterday showed him with that signature toothy grin, and it made me wonder: How much of his ability to captivate people comes just from the smile? After 8 years of dour cluelessness, there’s something attractive about a face so young, shiny, new – and pretty, to boot.
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djmm says:
Thanks for the short cuts to ™. In Windows, I usually go to Start> Programs> Accessories> System Tools> Character Map> and, then, in Arial, find it in U2122, 10 rows above the Arabic script and 7 columns from the right. Select and copy, then paste.
I do everything the hard way…
I hope, I hope , I hope that the Obama administration will be better than I fear. Many Presidents have risen to the role. But most had a lot more experience — and more successes– than President Elect Obama. So if it is as bad as I, at least we can enjoy the slow enlightenment of many Obama supporters.
Re men hating/not seeing women, my significant other is as feminist as a man can get (almost). But even he just does not see or hear me sometimes. It’s amazing. It would be more irritating if whatever it is I am telling him about wasn’t something about to hit him in the face (which it does). It’s kind of the same thing with many Obama supporters….
djmm
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CoolAunt says:
I do hope Obama will bring me a new bicycle for Christmas.
