The Liberals’ Biggest Mistake

How well do you know Barack Obama? Do you know him as well as your father? Or your uncle Jack? Or your cousin Sue?
The answer to all of these questions is probably “not that well.” A great many people were certainly surprised by the sort of president Obama has turned out to be. What they saw on television during the campaign has not accorded particularly well with what they currently see as he performs his office.
Think too of one of Obama’s many promises. On more than one occasion he pledged to be his brother and sister’s keeper. He would look after our personal welfare as if we were his very own siblings. But guess what? He is not my brother. Nor do I expect that he is one of yours.
And herein lies Obama’s biggest mistake; one he shares with liberals in general. Obama thinks that society is—or should be—one big family. Moreover, he and his political allies perceive themselves, if not as our surrogate parents, then at least as our protective older siblings. They therefore intend to safeguard us from our personal follies.
This, of course, is the patent medicine they are now attempting to sell us with regard to health care. Unfortunately many of us refuse to see this reform as in our interest; hence it must be forced upon us much as cod liver oil was once forced down the throats of small children.
The trouble is that Obama is not, in fact, our well-meaning parent or brother. Nor are his congressional associates our altruistic elder siblings. They are politicians who merely claim to be the equivalent of our relatives. Indeed, if we listen carefully, they admit as much.
Thus, one of the arguments that has been used to persuade reluctant Democrats to vote for Obamacare is that if they do not, the president’s political capital will be irreparably damaged. In other words, they are being asked to care more about his interests than those of their constituents.
The point—and it is not a trivial one—is that we are not members of a single extended family. We—all three hundred million of us—are not biologically related. Nor do we usually behave as if we were. We may be human, and reside within the same boundaries, but this does not convert us into genetically linked intimates.
The fact is that we do not—and cannot—constitute a single family. There are simply too many of us. It is both physically and psychologically impossible to treat each other as actual kin.
First, we cannot literally meet, never mind know, hundreds of millions of others. We may depend upon these strangers for our livelihood, but that is not the same as distinguishing between them as individuals. This means that Obama cannot hope to address a host of diverse needs it is impossible for him to identify.
Second, we cannot literally care for hundreds of millions of others. Our biology is such that we human beings are capable of loving only a relatively few. Therefore, when politicians claim they love all their fellow citizens this is at best a figure of speech. They, including Obama, are essentially manipulating our need to be loved for their own purposes.
Speaking now as a sociologist, I must again point out that we are not, in fact, family. We are not biologically related. Ironically, that we must sometimes cooperate as if we were is perhaps the central problem of modern mass societies. We are, in reality, what sociologists call a Gesellschaft society, that is, a community of strangers who often act as if we were not.
To repeat we are not family, hence to pretend otherwise is a huge mistake. Moreover, assuming so can lead to horrendous errors. For instance, to imagine that faceless bureaucrats would administer government run health care as if we were members of their own families could prove ruinous.
Obama and company may mean well, but their assumption that we are one big family is more than silly. It is an intellectual fiction of which we must all be wary.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University