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The Tattered Idealism of Barack Obama
- jfengel 6y agoI'm trying to decide if I have the guts to read this book. I was never as optimistic as he is, and from that low start I'm even more disillusioned. I've survived by checking out completely. (That's a thing I can get away with. I recognize that many others are more directly affected, and have to live with the consequences.) But I admire his optimism, and his intelligence. He has a better perspective. If he's got a reason to think there's a place for optimism, I'd be incredibly grateful for it. Of course the whole thing about hope is that it exists without reason, and even despite it. You can't think yourself into it. It has to enter though the back doors -- back doors I don't trust, because they're exactly the same back doors used to inspire xenophobia, paranoia, and cruelty. I want to read the book but I've got a hideous feeling it's going to make me feel worse rather than better. I've set what I thought was a pretty low bar on expectations for people, and they've sailed right under that bar. The way he was treated sealed that for me. If there's any way out of that, it would be seeing how he rises above that. But if I can't see it, what's left?