Our new reality by Stefan Beck

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Nov 19, 2008 05:29 AM

Our new reality

by Stefan Beck

Press releases are not generally known for their subtlety and restraint, but here’s one, courtesy of The New Yorker’s “Book Bench,” that achieves hitherto unknown levels of pomposity. The book in question is How They See Us: Writers from Around the Globe Reflect on America. Galleys of the book were recalled, though not because of errors or budget problems. Read for yourself:

Since this book was conceived, compiled and set in galleys, the election of Barack Obama as our 44th President has altered not only the United States, but the world, in whose eyes we are now seen as a place where sudden strange miracles occur, where literally overnight the luster of the American dream can be restored. President Obama won’t be leading us down the Yellow Brick Road; he’s just a man. But his election has transformed our image in the eyes of the world. How they see us now bears little resemblance to how they saw us then . . .

A number of the writers we invited, perhaps solipsistically, to reflect on our national character produced essays that stand as written: they are personal, and revolve around no defining moment. Others were preoccupied by Bush, or by the coming election. These writers I invited to revise their essays in accordance with our new reality. The result is a book that conforms to its original intention: to put the focus as much on the contributors as on their subject. We wrote to writers we admired. They replied with essays about a country they admired in varying degrees; where the disapprobation was perhaps too strong, I proposed revision. Six months later, the title holds; what’s changed is the object of contemplation.

At least we can admit that Obama is “just a man” (and not a Beast, I suppose?). But really, does any sane person believe that the world has revised its opinion of America because of Obama’s election? Has anyone put aside what we are told are serious complaints just because the voters chose this guy, who hasn’t even done anything yet? And should we welcome the approval of those who adjust their judgments on such trivial, mercurial grounds?

The sad thing is that The New Yorker didn’t quote this letter to ridicule it. “Others were preoccupied by Bush” is my favorite line—those authors are presumably being instructed to be preoccupied by Obama from now on. Our “new reality” entails paying lip service to Obama’s mortal status while acting in every important sense as though he just jogged out from under the Bodhi tree. Will anyone else stick his neck out and say that our reality is pretty much the same one we went to bed with the night before the election?

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