Policy and Philosophy

The Second Inaugural Address of President Barack Obama contained a surprising amount of discussion of specific policy issues. Tax reform. Immigration. Gay rights. Climate change. (Yay!) The welfare state. Election reform. Etc. This was a lot more discussion of policy than is typical in these contexts. But one thing I noticed was that Obama talked about these things like a philosopher rather than like a public policy expert. There were no details; rather, each issue was tied into the deep underlying issues of American political theory. That, I felt, made it entirely appropriate for an Inaugural, in a way that specific details wouldn't have been. He didn't propose any solutions; rather, he identified problems and suggested an approach we should take to solving them. Now, not everyone agrees with those approaches, of course, but in a way that's the point. If you start discussing details, you're in the area where reasonable people can disagree, or at least where people who share the same goals can naturally be expected to quibble at the margins. That's insufficiently dignified for an Inaugural Address. The level at which Obama discussed policy, on the other hand, was the level of goals and values and priorities, where disagreements will not be within his own political coalition but between his coalition and its opponents. It's also the level at which you can frame your side's views as being obviously implied by fundamental American values, and therefore (without even mentioning them) frame the other side as being equally obviously in the wrong. It was, in other words, a very skilled incorporation of policy into a grand ceremonial speech like this one. The details of the Obama agenda for 2013 will come at the State of the Union, but the broad philosophical approach of the Second Obama Administration was outlined today. And it was a damn good speech.