President Obama is a herald of the politics of dignity. It matters not that he slips up once in a while, or chooses the time and place to make his stand for dignity. What matters is that he strives to respect human dignity, regardless of role or rank. He's an instinctive dignitarian.
Dignity for whom? you ask. Dignity for all. For blacks and whites, for men and women, for gays and straights, for young and old, for rich and poor, for immigrants and the native-born, for conservatives and progressives, for "somebodies" and for "nobodies." Obama is also trying to engage friend and foe alike in a global dignitarian dialogue.
The American people know that indignities their nation has inflicted on the world have diminished America's stature. And, they know that the daily humiliations that they and their fellow citizens are enduring are incompatible with lives of dignity and signify institutional failure.
How could Obama's presidency address the indignities that manifest as 10 % unemployment, corporate corruption, failed schools, higher education now unaffordable to many, 50 million citizens without health insurance, unprecedented foreclosure rates and growing homelessness, two million in jail and recidivism over 50 %, and the subversion of our democracy by moneyed special interests?
To combat indignity, we need to pinpoint its cause. The cause of indignity is not power, nor is it power differences. It is rather the abuse of power. To oppose indignity, we do not have to eliminate differences in power, nor the differences in rank that merely reflect them. Persons of high rank who treat their subordinates with dignity are admired, if not loved.
Rank, in itself, is not the culprit. The problem is rank abuse, and it has grown to epidemic proportions. Abuses of rank have no place in a dignitarian world. Taking a page from the women's movement, if we are to combat rank abuse effectively, we must give it a distinctive name. By analogy with racism, sexism, and ageism, abuse of the power inherent in rank is rankism. Once you have a name for it, you see it everywhere.
The outrage over bonuses for failed Wall Street executives is indignation over rankism. The power of lobbyists to override the democratic will of the people is rankism. That we rank first in greenhouse gas emissions and have shown little inclination to curb our appetite for fossil fuels is an example of rankism in international relations.
As racism denigrated and disadvantaged blacks, and sexism disenfranchised and restricted women, so rankism marginalizes and exploits the working poor, keeping them in their place while their low pay effectively subsidizes everyone else. As class membranes become less permeable, resignation, cynicism, and indignation mount.
An America in which the American Dream has become a mirage is not an America worthy of the name. The achievability of that dream is what made this country the envy of the world and made us, its citizens, proud. Making that dream good again is a challenge comparable to overcoming the second-class citizenship that has limited blacks, women, gays, and others. Building a dignitarian society is democracy's next evolutionary step.
A dignitarian society will naturally conduct itself differently on the world stage. There is no fury like that borne of chronic humiliation. President Obama's demeanor suggests that he understands that a vital part of a strong defense is not giving offense in the first place. His speeches abroad have begun to restore good will toward the United States, and while good will alone does not constitute a national defense, it surely beats the ill-will that we have garnered in recent years.
President Johnson, following his personal instincts, led his fellow countrymen through an about-face on segregation. Much as overcoming a legacy of racism is the work of several generations, so too is the task of uprooting rankism and building a dignitarian society. President Obama knows that solutions won't arise out of politics as usual. His personification of dignitarian politics resonates not only with Americans but around the world. The next step is to turn from exemplifying the politics of dignity to enunciating its policy implications and molding them into a legislative agenda for a dignitarian America.
