By Mr. Curmudgeon
When Abraham Lincoln ascended to the presidency, his first inaugural speech appealed to the “better angels” of his angry southern brothers. They answered by shelling Fort Sumter – proving that human beings are anything but angelic.
President Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize was odd in the way his speech boomeranged between utopian drivel and tangible, three-dimensional reality:
“Adhering to this law of love has always been the core struggle of human nature. We are fallible. We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil. Even those of us with the best intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.
“We do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place…”
The long, lamentable catalogue of human crime will never dissuade utopians from endeavoring to remake man in their image. Then, in bipolar fashion, the president returned to reality, giving a grudging acknowledgment to the enemy of utopianism – man’s evil:
“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”
It’s good the president reminded the Swedish Academy that we inhabit a malicious world. It is little mentioned that Swedish Member of Parliament, E.G.C. Brant, nominated Adolph Hitler for the Peace Prize in 1939, which was withdrawn after Germany invaded Poland. Joseph Stalin was also nominated in 1945 - and again in 1948 – for helping end the world war his non-aggression pact with Hitler helped launch. In fact, while the world struggled to rid the Earth of Hitler’s shadow, Sweden – who refused to stand and be counted – remained neutral, exporting iron ore to the Third Reich and its war machine. It’s easy to talk of peace while others do the heavy lifting.
The president concluded his remarks by saying:
“We can admit the intractability of depravation, and still strive for dignity. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that – for that is the story of human progress; that is the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.”
Mr. Obama’s speech reflects the moral confusion and dilemma of the utopian. Expelled from the garden for his rebellion against the truth, the utopian awards himself for his futile attempts to replicate a Paradise Lost.
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