People of my generation have largely learned to distrust the government. The past eight years of conservative leadership have taught us, both by example and by policy, that the idea of government as of the people, by the people, and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln described it, is a fallacy. In general, we don't identify with government officials as our elected representatives. We fear them, view them with extreme skepticism, and challenge their words and actions.
In Inventing the Psychological, John Demos tells us that it wasn't always this way. “In the colonial period of American history,” he writes, “family and community had been experienced as complementary to one another; indeed the household unit was typically viewed as the ‘little commonwealth' which prepared the individual in a wholly natural way for social and political roles in the wider world [Pfister and Schnog p. 67].” When the Industrial Revolution hit, the family moved to the city, and men went outside of the home to work instead of staying on the family farm, what Demos calls “structural differentiation” took place: each member of the family took on a distinct role, and the family itself became distinct from the wider world [68].”
[...] In a perfect world, I'd be able to analyze maybe hundreds of other angles in the differences and similarities between inaugurals through history: what presidents who become legendary have in common, how presidents behave in times of economic crisis, how the conception of the American self changed as reflected in speeches around historical events such as the Great Depression and the Industrial Revolution, or how presidents' campaign speeches, inaugurals, and post-election speeches differ. I would also have liked to have had time to look harder at the overarching themes of more speeches, to try to perceive a national attitude that shifts through time. [...]
[...] Bush and Barack Obama used language in their inaugural speeches belies this ideological dichotomy between individual and community, Republican and Democrat, and old and young. An Ahearn-style analysis of Bush and Obama's use of emotionally-charged words that deal with the meanings of citizenship allows us a window into the changing ways that these two men and those they represent view the American self and its role, and can give us a glimpse of the larger discourse in play. Of course, there are contradictions and ambiguities present, but the trend of a shifting American mindset is clear. [...]
[...] One analyst said his inaugural relied on the “rhetoric of responsibility,” and held up his use of fellow citizens” instead of fellow Americans” as an implication of the responsibility to the community of the nation that citizenship imposes (although Bush did the same thing in 2001)[Clark]. A blogger from the Democratic party website summed up the party viewpoint in a post entitled Community vs. Individual: not trying to make a socialist argument here, but I think that our current form of Western individualism which basically ignores a responsibility to others needs to be refocused [Lee]. [...]
[...] Interestingly, Bush also anthropomorphizes ‘America' as one entity: “America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies America speaks anew to the peoples of the world America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling [Bush 2001 and 2005].” Obama, in contrast, uses America more conventionally: he occasionally addresses Americans as and uses the title to discuss the tasks of the nation, but does not generally set it up as a person in its own right. [...]
[...] ‘America/American' Obama used the word ‘American' five times in his inaugural speech. Bush used the word nineteen times in his two speeches, much more than most presidents. One could argue that this emphasis on our identity as Americans is a reflection of the increased stress on nationalism under the Bush administration, but let's examine the context: “Americans, of all people, should not be surprised by the power of our ideals by making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before [Bush and 2005].” Bush sees the adjective “American” as a compliment. [...]
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