So while blogger etiquette demands that I give some sort of accounting of the last few months of silence here on Iqra’i, and some sort of vague and tantalizing promise of “big changes” that may be afoot in the near future, I will refrain from doing either at present. Largely because undergraduate bloggers are half-tamed things, and to expect predictability or accountability from us is often unwise. Suffice to say that when I’ve got something to say (sir), I’m going to say it now.
I watched today’s inauguration in a spare classroom (no, not one from a canceled class). Like plenty of other bloggers out there, I was struck by the end of the oath of office — the “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” part. But I think Andrew et al., in focusing on the last man to take that oath, aren’t paying enough attention to the fact that it was administered with equal solemnity to the forty-two before him as well, which is what makes it really interesting. Each incoming President of the United States has sworn his allegiance to a document. Not the nation, and not even its body of laws, but the blueprint of its federal government. It’s a bit weird.
Allegiance by synecdoche itself is pretty standard, of course — ever pledged allegiance to the flag? But the Pledge makes the connection explicit: “…and to the republic for which it stands.” The Oath of Office never does; instead, it enlists the president into a series of active verbs that sound like some chivalric honor code. (The mental image reminds me of some scene from a future National Treasure sequel, with the President carrying the Constitution under one arm out of the wreckage of the National Archives as he fights off a pack of terrorist ninjas with the other.)
And the conventional oath for the vice president — and, for that matter, all Senators and Representatives — is even more ridiculous in its swashbuckle. You may have missed this if you were still reeling from the sight of Aretha Franklin’s fabulous hat, but Joe Biden solemnly swore to (among other things)
support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same…
Afterwards he held onto the Lincoln Bible for a few moments before unloading it onto someone else, lugging it awkwardly as if it were a gag prop. Which, in a way, it was. The oaths may be taken on the Bible, but it’s merely the witness; the Constitution, indisputably human-written, is the addressee. (Arguably, John Quincy Adams had it right when he swore on a book of constitutional law instead, or maybe it was redundant.)
It’s also controlling the proceedings, of course, and to me this is the weirdest part. Flub or no flub, the presidential oath of office didn’t matter. Barack Obama became president before he stepped up to the podium, somewhere during that interminable “Simple Gifts” performance, at exactly 12:00 pm. That is what the Constitution says, and that is what happened. The oath was just for show, like opening a solstice ceremony with a pledge to uphold the sun. (For what it’s worth, I agree with what’s been said about how flat and prosaic Obama’s speech and Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem were, but they weren’t the point either. They were just everyday, spoken words. The ones that mattered were silent.)
Linda Hirshman has a fascinating exegesis of Obama’s choice to address his “fellow citizens,” rather than “fellow Americans.” But it seemed far simpler to me when I heard the speech myself. American nationhood is a fundamentally political thing: the Constitution its emblem, the citizen its basic unit. We were no nation before we were a state. (The national capital, America’s only monumental city, is as good a setting as any to underscore this.)
Which isn’t to say that politics is a sufficient base for interpersonal relationships, or that American civic culture needs to be fundamentally political, or even that welfare doesn’t “dehumanize” charity by politicizing it (though I don’t disagree with the last). But it is something to keep in mind.
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