...All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do — that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be. That is the thread that connects our hearts. That is the thread that runs through my journey and Barack's journey and so many other improbable journeys that have brought us here tonight, where the current of history meets this new tide of hope.And this:
Barack stood up that day, and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about "The world as it is" and "The world as it should be." And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and settle for the world as it is — even when it doesn't reflect our values and aspirations. But he reminded us that we know what our world should look like. We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves — to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be.And this:
one day, they — and your sons and daughters — will tell their own children about what we did together in this election. They'll tell them how this time, we listened to our hopes, instead of our fears. How this time, we decided to stop doubting and to start dreaming. How this time, in this great country — where a girl from the South Side of Chicago can go to college and law school, and the son of a single mother from Hawaii can go all the way to the White House – we committed ourselves to building the world as it should be.I happened to read this from C.S. Lewis' essay, "Why I Am Not A Pacifist":
It may be asked whether, faint as the hope is of abolishing war by Pacifism, there is any other hope. But the question belongs to a mode of thought which I find quite alien to me. It consists in assuming that the great permanent miseries in human life must be curable if only we can find the right cure; and it then proceeds by elimination and concludes that whatever is left, however unlikely to prove a cure, must nevertheless do so.He goes on:
I have received no assurance that anything we can do will eradicate suffering. I think the best results are obtained by people who work quietly away at limited objectives, such as the abolition of the slave trade, or prison reform, or factory acts, or tuberculosis, not by those who think they can achieve universal justice, or health, or peace. I think the art of life consists in tackling each immediate evil as well as we can. To avert or postpone one particular war by wise policy, or to render one particular campaign shorter by strength and skill or less terrible by mercy to the conquered and the civilians is more useful than all the proposals for universal peace that have ever been made; just as the dentist who can stop one toothache has deserved better of humanity than all of the men who think they have some scheme for producing a perfectly healthy race.
I had a vague sense of unreality watching all the shots from the floor of Democratic delegates weeping with religious fervor at Mrs. Obama's words. What were they so moved by? I heard a nice anecdote about her father, an enumeration of how good America has been to her family -- nevertheless it must be changed, self-congratulation (it is not for us to say of ourselves that we are ardent in faith or particularly passionate parents or possessed of excellent values) and glittering generalities. I realized, all jokes about "The One" aside, Michelle Obama's appeal indeed is a messianic one --she's appealing to a religious impulse. I don't object to her actual words --if she & Barack were itinerant preachers telling everyone to begin to renew America by reforming our own lives --each of us living more justly-- I'd be cheering them too. I also hope for a great awakening. That's the essence of what she says. But then you find out that "justice" isn't personal, it's political --you have to vote for a whole host of dubiously just policies. And, alas, politics isn't ultimate, no matter what you think about taxes, health care & foreign policy.
