Obama: Hermeneutical Problems

As I said, a good speech; as the folks in the National Review say, with deep slipperiness. Let me try one more take on it:

Obama is presenting this as a problem of hermeneutics--a question of understanding, which leads us to productive action. We are taken to understand American history, and Wright in particular, as the grounds for our action in the present. Obama is himself a phronimos, expert in understanding, therefore able to act wisely. Our own wisdom consists of similar understanding, the vote that will enable Obama to act wisely.

But ... Obama presents his attendance at Wright's church as an act of understanding, not an act to be understood. (The two go together, but assume for the moment they can be analyzed as separate.) Or, to be more precise, his act of attendance relates to the anodyne part of Wright's ministry; his understanding relates to the evil part. And his understanding of the evil part of Wright's ministry is comparable to, say, my understanding of my slaveholding ancestors, or my understanding of the Black Panthers, for whom I take responsibility as an American, and who form the tradition from which I act.

But this is a misleading conflation of different hermeneutical acts. Understanding is a foundation for my own actions and endorsements. I must acknowledge slaveholders as part of my tradition, my America--but I don't therefore get a pass if I attend a slaveholding church. I cannot disown my slaveholding ancestors, but I can separate myself rigorously from current slaveholding, and from any institution that lends aid and comfort to slaveholding. Indeed, it is precisely because I don't disown myself from my past that I have a special responsibility to do so. I "own" my heritage precisely by the act of condemnation and rejection, by disassociating myself from any institution that continues to associate itself with such evil. And if I do not do so, this is an act susceptible to other people's hermeneutical understanding.

Obama cannot disown Wright. He must own him by rejecting him, by leaving his church, by apologizing for his membership in such a church. His recognition of Wright's complex humanity does not cut against this decision--all evil people have complex humanity in them. Our understanding of complexity produces, and should produce, simple actions.

Obama, for example, is a complex man. And understanding his actions and choices, we simply should not vote for him.