Real Presence

February 3, 2009

The last New Yorker had an article by Nancy Franklin on the experience of watching the inauguration on television.. especially the cable news outlets. She has some interesting observations, but she ends with an odd turn away from her subject:

I’d seen Obama become President, verified that—phew!—it had actually happened, but I hadn’t felt connected to it, except, oddly enough, when I watched scenes of other people watching it on TV, like elderly black men and women, who sat at home and wept as they saw something that they had never imagined would happen. I should have put the remote down and got myself to Washington and stood in the crowd, freezing and cheering, maybe even, for the first time, waving a flag. January 20th might have been the greatest day in my lifetime. By watching it on TV, I’d missed it.

This kind of thinking is common: to take in an event at second hand is to somehow miss it, to not really feel it.

I understand the emotion perfectly, but I've come to suspect it. Being there is for fans.. that is, those immersed in a system of symbols (see my post here). This holds true whether we are talking about a rock concert or the inauguration of a president. For fans the aura of presence is an emotional reinforcement of symbols and identity; it is that feeling of authenticity and connection. And besides, who wants to report to their children that they watched Obama on television.. much more impressive to say "I was there".. which translated means: "I was part of it all."

That's all fine, but it's antithetical to the goals of being a scholar. Think about it. What was important about the inauguration was how that event got mediated and represented to the nation. By flipping through the news channels and checking out the immediate responses posted online it was possible to watch the act of meaning construction (as I tried to highlight here). The event was acquiring meaning, and it was possible to watch that going on. To be at the event relegated one to being another person posting limited impressions and cell phone photos. The people who are really there are just tools in the construction of national meaning for the event. The scholar will forego "presence" in favor of "representations." To some that will seem like a bad trade, but not to me.

Putting aside these notions of scholarship, I also must ask about the meaning of the last eight years. I'm not ready to jump back into the nationalism that would have come quite easily once upon a time. I am trying to cultivate a broader global identity, and I have no patience for the national system of symbols that Obama is seeking to infuse with new relevance. The desire to be present at the inauguration, with its acceptance and glorification of our past, is a way of being a fan of America. I'm not there and don't think I ever will be again. I'll watch the events on TV, thank you.