Since he has been elected president, commentators on the right have debated amongst themselves as to what Barack Obama honestly expects to gain from his policies.\u00a0 One school of thought, represented by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, swears that the president seeks nothing more or less than the destruction of America.\u00a0 The other school, of which Michael Medved is a key representative, insists that Obama has nothing but the best interests of the country at heart\u2014however misplaced his mind on this matter may be. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
From which of these two positions should we choose?<\/p>\n
Obama himself gave us more than a few hints regarding the correct answer to this question.\u00a0\u00a0 Setting aside everything else we know about him, we need only turn our attention back to the presidential campaign of 2008 when then Senator Obama proudly pledged to \u201cfundamentally transform\u201d America in the event of his election.<\/p>\n
Even though a transformation involves change, <\/em>it is a mistake to identify it with change as such.\u00a0 Still, to comprehend the nature of a transformation, we must begin our inquiry with an examination of the concept of change. Fortunately, for our sake, we have a millennia-old philosophical tradition at our disposal, a tradition that stems back 2,600 years to classical Greece and that helped define Western civilization.\u00a0<\/p>\n From its inception, the themes of change<\/em> and permanence<\/em> have more or less determined the character of Western philosophy.\u00a0 For this, we have the \u201cpre-Socratic\u201d philosophers to thank.\u00a0 Parmenides, for example, thought that change must be an illusion, for change is identity-extinguishing.\u00a0 This reasoning is sound.\u00a0 Think about it: we know that two things are two things <\/em>and not the same thing because each possesses properties that the other lacks.\u00a0 But whatever changes has properties at one moment that it lacks at the next.\u00a0 If change were real, then, we wouldn\u2019t be able to identify anything.\u00a0 Yet we can identify things.\u00a0 Thus, change must be an illusion.<\/p>\n Heraclitus, in contrast, argued for just the opposite position: it is permanence that is illusory; change is the only reality.\u00a0 We witness change all around us.\u00a0\u00a0 However, in spite of his disagreement with Parmenides over the nature of reality, that Heraclitus shared his belief that change precludes identity is gotten from his famous declaration that \u201cone cannot step in the same river twice!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n These early partisans of permanence and change, respectively, deserve gratitude for getting this conversation underway. Yet, thankfully, the conception of identity as exact sameness <\/em>underlying their conflict has been revisited\u2014and rejected\u2014by subsequent generations of thinkers.\u00a0 The most plausible candidate for identity, one that resonates with our \u201ccommon sense\u201d intuitions, conceives identity in terms of continuity<\/em>.\u00a0 On this view, something is the same thing at one moment as it is at the next, not if it never endures change, but if the changes that it undergoes are continuous with one another and, hence, capable of being assimilated.<\/p>\n It is important to note that this conception of identity excludes radical or transformative <\/em>change.\u00a0\u00a0 The person I am today bears few similarities to the person I was at two years-old, but the fact of the matter remains that I am<\/em> the same person.\u00a0 That is, I can justifiably point to the picture of the two year-old on the mantle and claim: \u201cThat\u2019s me when I was a baby.\u201d\u00a0 Although the cumulative effect of the countless changes that I have undergone over the span of my life have produced a 39 year-old with characteristics dramatically different from those possessed by the two year-old I once was, these changes have been gradual <\/em>and continuous <\/em>with one another.\u00a0<\/p>\n If, however, all of my memories, my very history, were suddenly to be eliminated and replaced by the experiences of another, then<\/em> I would be \u201cfundamentally transformed\u201d into that other.\u00a0 This, though, is but another way of saying that the person who I have always been would cease to exist.\u00a0 To put it even more starkly, the \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d of anything is simply\u2014and literally\u2014its death. <\/em><\/p>\n So, paradoxically, \u201cfundamental transformation\u201d is beyond change altogether. Change is experienced in the process <\/em>of dying, <\/em>it is true, but since the dead <\/em>experience nothing, <\/em>the event of death can\u2019t be said to be a change at all, for there no longer is a subject to suffer the change.\u00a0 In other words, transforming <\/em>consists of radical change(s) but the transformation <\/em>is beyond change.<\/p>\n Anyone with any doubts on this score should ask himself how his wife would respond if he expressed his wish to fundamentally transform her.\u00a0 The answer to this question is obvious.\u00a0 Most spouses, at least those in moderately successful marriages, recognize the need to make some changes in themselves.\u00a0 But the desire to fundamentally transform one\u2019s spouse is nothing other than the desire for a new spouse.<\/p>\n With these considerations in mind, it should now be clear that President Obama does indeed wish to destroy America.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t that he longs for destruction for its own sake. His aim is to destroy the country that we have inherited and to forge from its ashes a new America of his leftist imagination.\u00a0 No doubt, Obama genuinely believes that this new America in which material resources are more \u201cequitably\u201d distributed among racial and other groups is morally superior the status quo.\u00a0 He no doubt believes that we will all be better off for it.<\/p>\n However, while he may be devoid of malice, our President\u2019s promise to fundamentally transform our country is<\/em> the promise to replace it with another.<\/p>\n Jack Kerwick, Ph.D.<\/p>\n originally published at The New American<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since he has been elected president, commentators on the right have debated amongst themselves as to what Barack Obama honestly expects to gain from his policies.\u00a0 One school of thought, represented by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, swears that the president seeks nothing more or less than the destruction of America.\u00a0 The other school, of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n