The Emergence of Obama

Sitting outside the poll yesterday, I listened to Steven Johnson discuss emergence on both a Radiolab podcast and TED Talk. I didn't quite make the direct connection at the time, but later in the day I began to recognize Obama's political success in our country as an example of emergence. In the same way that Alan Watts speaks of a tree appling and a planet peopling, the United States just obama'ed. We are witnessing the emergence of a new politics and a new sensibility in this country. Recent research at the NDN indicates that a new generation of voters is fundamentally transforming politics in this country and consequently, the types of people who rise to positions of power. Obama is right when he acknowledges the essential role his supporters have played in his meteoric rise. He knows, in much the same way Howard Dean got an inkling of in 2004 (and Joe Trippi wrote about), that his electoral success is a self fulfilling prophecy of the American political system.