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Comments on History, Politics, Society, and Culture
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
BELIEFS OF OBAMA'S FATHER
Obama's father had an article published which shows how far to the left he was.
1 comment:
Anonymous
said...
There are a lot of problems with Greg Ransom's interpretation. I think this is the crux: "So we know that his father's ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us [in Dreams from my Father] are the contents of those ideals."
Ideals don't have "contents." Ideals are ideals -- conceptions of perfection. People can apply ideals, or try to reach ideals, in different ways. And a son can idolize his father for idealism without even knowing what his father's specific policies are.
There is no evidence in that blogpost that Barack Obama (younger) agrees with the particular policies his father pursued -- any more than we would have to agree with all of the policies and methods of the ANC in order to hope that apartheid would end in South Africa.
There are other big problems in the blogpost, too, which give me reason to doubt Ransom's ability to interpret texts correctly in the first place. Ransom's use of the term "neocolonialism," for example, is very strange. I think he's actually going for "anticolonialism." Not exactly suggestive of a first-rate thinker.
But there is a bigger problem still. Ransom has completely missed the context of the article. Obama Sr. was not advancing his own socialist ideas, but criticizing those of others. (See here.) This completely changes the meaning of many of the things that upset Ransom so much -- for example, Obama's supposed belief in forced collectivization of land. In reality, the article does not recommend that course; it merely points out the the Kenyan government's socialist plans were inconsistent.
So Ransom's blogpost is very frustrating and not informative at all.
1 comment:
There are a lot of problems with Greg Ransom's interpretation. I think this is the crux: "So we know that his father's ideals were a driving force in his life, but the one thing that Obama does not give us [in Dreams from my Father] are the contents of those ideals."
Ideals don't have "contents." Ideals are ideals -- conceptions of perfection. People can apply ideals, or try to reach ideals, in different ways. And a son can idolize his father for idealism without even knowing what his father's specific policies are.
There is no evidence in that blogpost that Barack Obama (younger) agrees with the particular policies his father pursued -- any more than we would have to agree with all of the policies and methods of the ANC in order to hope that apartheid would end in South Africa.
There are other big problems in the blogpost, too, which give me reason to doubt Ransom's ability to interpret texts correctly in the first place. Ransom's use of the term "neocolonialism," for example, is very strange. I think he's actually going for "anticolonialism." Not exactly suggestive of a first-rate thinker.
But there is a bigger problem still. Ransom has completely missed the context of the article. Obama Sr. was not advancing his own socialist ideas, but criticizing those of others. (See here.) This completely changes the meaning of many of the things that upset Ransom so much -- for example, Obama's supposed belief in forced collectivization of land. In reality, the article does not recommend that course; it merely points out the the Kenyan government's socialist plans were inconsistent.
So Ransom's blogpost is very frustrating and not informative at all.
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