After the January Inauguration of President Obama, I wrote a blog post building on Obama’s message of empathy, in particular how to attempt empathy when engaging in debate with those of differing opinions. Our entire populace is polarized on many issues — I feel we are self-segregating into digital hollows — and when we surround ourselves only with folks of like minds, it can be hard to honor the integrity of those who differ.

Obama has stated empathy will be a key component of his US Supreme Court pick, which has set off alarms among some, but not me. It is too easy, when dealing with the law, to burrow in on the fine points of this or that statute. That’s important, and Obama taught his students how to do that at the U. of Chicago Law School. But seeing a burrowing pine beetle on one tree can make it difficult to see the whole pine forest, or even the impact of the beetle on that tree and eventually neighboring trees. Too often in the copyright debate, the impact on individual artists — the original creators of works — is viewed as tangential to legal disputes, even though copyright exists to spur those creators to create for the benefit of all. A Justice who could think of the impact of legal disputes on individuals is welcome.

But Obama yesterday also stepped in to perhaps one of the most polarizing debates in American culture, that of pro-choice vs. pro-life. I cited this debate in my January post as perhaps the most challenging gap to bridge in terms of policy and champions of the two positions. A philosophy professor of mine in college liked to come back to this issue because of the thorny nature of it (and its example of “slippery slope” challenges).

By accepting an invitation to speak at Notre Dame, a Catholic university, Obama brought upon himself criticism from US bishops (although the Vatican was surprisingly silent), university students (a few dozen of which skipped the commencement), and activists from across the country who traveled there to protest. The university president was grilled on TV and the editorial pages for inviting a pro-choice politician to a Catholic campus.

But at the end of the day, Armageddon didn’t arrive. Obama spoke. The audience was for the most part receptive and tolerant. And Obama, again, used his mastery of oratory and language to convey a very important message, one that applies to those of us in the copyright debate. In fact, it was so eloquent The Washington Post ran the entire quote I’m about to include below; I can’t remember another president they gave so much uninterrupted ink to, and I’ve been reading the Post through five presidents. (See the article and video here.) Here goes:

Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

I think we do it by following Obama’s example, and the principles based on his language that I laid out in January. This doesn’t always result in compromise, or the post-partisanship he promised during the campaign. Such bridge-building is hard; the mountains rising up from our digital hollows are tall, and the paths out of the hollows are narrow. There haven’t been many bipartisan votes in the US House or Senate so far this year. But setting the right tone is a place to start (and the members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are, frankly, not accustomed to operating in that way; the trust isn’t there yet).

Hopefully readers will recognize that this post is not endorsing or opposing our current president; his message resonates regardless of what you think of his policies or leadership, and has certainly been made by some leading Republicans in the past, leaders like Howard Baker for example.

As I wrote three years ago, I am committed to doing my best to operate with integrity, and I go on the assumption that others are as well. This frequently leads to disappointment, something Obama is also experiencing, but if a US president can publicly commit himself to this path, the least I can do is try to stay on it as well. He will occasionally fail, I will fail with greater frequency, but it is important to keep trying.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 9:11 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, capitol hill, copyright law, copyright opponents, creators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.