Don't get me wrong. I liked Barack Obama's March 18 race speech."" It was a good and necessary discussion of racial differences and sensitivities in America. But it was also a distraction from the real issue posed by Rev. Jeremiah Wright's fiery comments: whether it's alright to say harsh and seemingly hateful things about one's country.
Obama didn't talk about that issue because he - and no one else - can.
During the Vietnam War, some Americans burned the flag or used the spelling ""Amerika"" to highlight the supposedly fascist character of the government. Amid the Weather Underground's attacks on government offices, rioting at the Democratic Convention of 1968, political assassinations and other social and political turbulence, saying ""Goddamn America"" might have been yawn-inducing 40 years ago.
But especially since Sept. 11, 2001, the same shadow of political correctness that first fell upon issues of race and gender decades earlier has squarely fallen on the matter of patriotism.
Now there are certain things that no longer can be said in mainstream discourse - including whether patriotism itself is a virtue and, if so, what constitutes patriotism.
The destruction of the World Trade Center was the closest thing in this era to a Biblical theophany.
Except for a few nutcases who imagined 9/11 to be the work of the U.S. government, everyone else - right, left and center - saw the burning bush and saw it in the same sacred way. Just as God had supposedly anointed the Pilgrims and blessed the land centuries before, the apocalypse of 9/11 was somehow a sign of our anointment as holy victim and leader of a world charge against Islamo-fascism. Imagining that the innocents killed on 9/11 were mere collateral damage of lousy U.S. foreign policy - rather than martyrs - was immediate heresy.
The Iraq War has eaten away at our faith in government, but has not removed the shadow of political correctness from much of our discussion.
Despite tens of thousands dead in Iraq and no trace of WMDs, our nation is still too prim and politically cowed to discuss whether the national narrative - the civil religion - of America as a God-protected Promised Land makes sense.
For an audience sensitive to the art of rhetoric - not just sound bites - Reverend Wright's call upon God to damn America was a call first of all to question the centrality of our narrative. By using the rhetorical mirror image of ""God Bless America,"" Wright essentially questioned whether the original image is still apt. If God blessed us, as the song says, should God continue to do so? Or has our government committed so many depredations in the name of our country that God should cast us out? And, if so, what should common citizens do?
Unfortunately, in such hyper-politically correct times, these questions are considered heretical.
Although fewer Americans are religiously observant and the faith of Americans is increasingly non-Christian, the nation's civil religion still flourishes.
The idea of God - either as reality or as a powerful symbol - endowing our country with a special role in the world is stronger than ever. The idea that our civil religion and its deity may be another name for nationalistic hubris is traitorous. The idea that patriotism is not the highest ideal is unspeakable.
The Bill of Rights gave us freedom of speech, but if we censor ourselves into a narrow, safe circle that admits no transgressive ideas we will intellectually and spiritually starve as surely as if we lived in a police state. What we need are challenges to tired ways of thinking, including old ideas of patriotism and national purpose. What we need is not political correctness, but political daring and leadership at all levels - from citizens to pundits to candidates.
If the last few years taught us anything, it is that we should not blindly swallow political pabulum. The notion that harsh language, inflammatory ideas and heretical viewpoints necessarily mean one wishes ill upon one's fellow citizens is wrong.
The future will be radically different from the past. The political, economic and environmental challenges facing the United States and the world are of a different order than before. The first requirement for merging onto the superhighway of the future will be to unfence those areas of discourse now off limits and address ideas thought too sacred to challenge.
Much of Obama's support hinges on the hope this can be achieved. Obama's ""new politics"" is less about wanting to change the mechanics of political sparring than about wanting to change the content of discussion.
But Obama's race speech - for all its beauty - showed that old politics and rampant political correctness have kept him on a depressingly short leash.
Kathryn Minnick is a graduate student majoring in journalism. Please send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
