Simon Critchley on beliefs and Barack Obama's rationalism.

Such scepticism about matters metaphysical is understandable enough and has a fine philosophical ancestry. But where does it leave us and where does it leave the question of belief, the cornerstone of Obama's entire presidential campaign? We come back to where we started, with the common good. Obama wants to believe in the common good as a way of providing a fullness to experience that avoids the slide into nihilism. But sometimes I don't know if he knows what belief is and what it would be to hold such a belief. It all seems so distant and opaque. The persistent presence of the mother's dilemma - the sense of loneliness, doubt, and abandonment - seems palpable and ineliminable. We must believe, but we can't believe. Perhaps this is the tragedy that some of us see in Obama: a change we can believe in and the crushing realisation that nothing will change.

Now that Barack's been president for a few weeks, the beliefs have run into the usual problem of not corresponding with the facts. But you can still feel the change since the election in people's demeanor. It's kind of like what I remember San Francisco feeling like whenever the Forty-Niners won the Super Bowl. I don't follow sports, but I noticed that people were happier and more pleasant to be around. It doesn't feel tragic yet.  ¶ 11:14 AM