comment on Obama and Intellectualism

While I admire those who command many facts and can stand complexity and ambiguity, what I hope for Obama is that he has the wisdom and humility or insight that other people know things too, and see true and important things that he doesn’t.

The greatness we need is someone who can rally us to pitch in and who will listen to our voice and wisdom and insight, not just his own voice and small group of males with a false consensus.

I read with alarm that his aides are trying to pick the few most important issues to start on. I’d suggest the single most important issue is that, with 200 holes in the bottom of the boat, fixing the “most important 3″ while everyone else watches will not be the winning strategy.

We need someone who can decentralize power and get 200 different centers of action working on all 200 problems at once. Any one of them can sink us. There is no “most important problem” any more, aside from the meta-problem of how to get more people independently working to help, and welcoming their help.

And he just might do that.