American Gilgamesh

Apropos of Shawn's remarks below:

Lord, is Sam Anderson's recent New York magazine spread on Barack Obama's ability to talk real pretty-like a piece of work!

Like America itself, [Obama is] addicted to origin myths. He's built his political success on the back of compulsive autobiography, the brilliant telling and retelling, and then retelling some more, of his divinely unorthodox life story: the great sweeping legend of Obamerica, the fusion of man and nation, whose manifest destiny extends all the way to the White House.

Is America really "addicted" to "origin myths"? Or is it thrilled by its own myth, and therefore by anyone whose personal story recapitulates it? It seems less like a case of Obamerica than Amerobama. This might sound like hair-splitting, but it's important to be clear on how the specific American mythos is what captures the American imagination, rather than any old Jungian archetype that comes along. We are only grab-baggers when it comes to practical, present-day experience. Sadly, however, therapeutic culture has pushed us exactly into Jung's open arms. To the extent that Obama embodies a shifting, therapeutic assemblage of archetypical fantasies, he's departing from the classic American script -- and the authoritative tradition of the classic American experience.