Maybe Obama should learn a trade

posted at 9:51 am on March 4, 2010 by Pundette
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Though I don’t quite go along with all of the psychoanalysis in Jeffrey Lord’s ‘I’m the President’: Tiger Woods In The White House, I think he’s on to something with his theory of “a cult of cultural and intellectual superiority.” He makes a good case with the example of General Eisenhower, dismissed as a “conventional mind.” Far from it:

Which is to say, the man who planned and executed the D-Day invasion, one of the most complex, difficult, massive — and stunningly successful — military operations in American or global history, requiring an in depth knowledge of to name but a few subjects military and world history, geography, topography, strategy, tactics, and weapons — was, well, not a very bright guy. Yes, it was Eisenhower, not Stevenson, who had spent a career immersing himself in Clausewitz, studied Napoleon, Grant and the details of their military campaigns as well as those of countless others. And yes, it was Ike and not Adlai who had made it a point to know every last detail of military minutia from the operation of a rifle to the details of running a submarine. But somehow, to Hofstadter and like-minded liberals of the day, Ike met the dictionary definition of philistine: “contentedly commonplace.” Eisenhower was, as repeatedly suggested by liberals of the day, simply not very bright. And thus, not deserving of serious consideration in anything he had to say.

Mr. Lord argues that if Obama were actually smart his community organizing efforts would have effected change in Chicago. But the David Brooksian “educated class” isn’t to be judged by something as pedestrian as performance. They tend not to engage in jobs, such as installing a light switch, unclogging a drain, or fixing a transmission, that can be objectively evaluated as done or not done. Perceived failures in community organizing, academics, column-writing, and governing are open to interpretation and can be explained away. Not so with a car that still doesn’t start.

Matthew Crawford, in his Shop Class as Soulcraft, understands the connection between manual competence, intellect, and narcissism. The “gifted student” is at a particular kind of risk of being insulated from reality:

But the praising of gifted students for being smart, by parents and teachers, has a far more pernicious effect, especially when such praise is combined with the grade inflation and soft curriculum that are notorious at elite schools. A student can avoid hard sciences and foreign languages and get a degree without ever having the unambiguous experience of being wrong.

He adds:

There may be something to be said, then, for having the gifted students learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their egos will be repeatedly crushed before they go on to run the country. (pp. 203-4)

But Obama’s ego wasn’t “crushed” with the inevitable failures of manual work. Many of his supporters acknowledged early on that the inexperienced Obama would have to “learn on the job” as president. But an intellectual narcissist can’t correct course because that would be admitting error; he can’t learn anything new because he already knows everything. The problem with the president isn’t so much that he’s not handy around the White House, but that his ego has rendered him ineducable.

Cross-posted here, where a wise commenter adds:

One of the reasons why I would prefer a president with military experience is that you can’t fudge basic training, and you can’t command without knowing how to do the things you order other people to do.

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