So much, of course, can be said about the significance of Barack Obama’s capturing the Democratic nomination for the presidency of the United States. I simply want to mark the moment by appealing to a single line from the speech he gave in Minnesota on Tuesday:
… this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …
I was surprised to find myself moved most by this fragment of a very inspiring speech. Perhaps it is in part because the book I am writing, The Saying of Things: The Nature of Truth and the Truth of Nature in Aristotle, has developed into a study of how human-being exists as a natural being in and with the world of nature.
Although I am thrilled to see an African-American receive the endorsement of a major political party, and I do not think the significance of this aspect of his candidacy can be overemphasized or celebrated too enthusiastically, still it continues to be the sort of politics Obama articulates that moves me most. His is not identity politics, but a visionary attempt to transform the nature of politics in the United States.
As I read today of how the U.S. Senate is determined to drown the climate debate in a flood of words designed to foster inaction, I look forward to a President who is willing to use words to transform the way we live in and with the world.
As Obama takes up the mantle of the Democratic Party, my hope is that he does not set aside the transformative politics that won him the nomination in the first place. I remain, as ever, confident that he will not.
UPDATE, 8:19: If this story from the AP indicating that Obama has instructed the Democratic National Committee not to take lobbyist money is any indication, my confidence is well founded.
