Here’s the real story tonight:
Glenn Beck, the host of the eponymous Glenn Beck show on CNN Headline News, is the sort of dumbed-down conservative that does what any good liberal had formerly believed was impossible. He makes conservatism look even more out of touch with reality than Reagan and the voodoo economists of the eighties did.
Here’s how I got there:
I’ve been watching Beck’s show at least once or twice a week for the last two years or so. At first he seemed like a relatively harmless moderate conservative who really didn’t know what he was talking about.
I’m afraid that now he seems like an increasingly, absurdly radical conservative spewing dangerous garbage that undereducated Americans lap up with abandon. And he still has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.
Here’s a fellow who has a highschool education, a history of alcohol and drug abuse and is a Mormon. And I’m supposed to take his opinion seriously? Especially on issues as important as terrorism and climate change?
I’ve got a highschool education, a history of substance abuse and no religious convictions whatsoever and no one listens to me! And at least I can verify that I read about and consider the issues—this is apparently not true of Beck’s approach to current events.
One of Glenn’s favourite sayings involves telling people what he’s not (ie: “I’m not a New York Times Editor”) and then reminding us that he is “a thinker”. The only trouble with this Glenn-ism is that it’s abundantly clear that this man is not a thinker.
An example would be his criticism of public schools for choosing to make Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth part of the curriculum. He complained that it was too hard to get God into schools and impossible to get climate change out.
Maybe you need a little help, maybe you can’t understand this either. Allow me to point out the flaw in Glenn’s “thinking”:
Climate change is discussed and should be discussed in public schools because—whether or not you choose to listen—there is ample scientific evidence for the existence of climate change, for the probable severity of its effects and the likelihood that it is anthropogenic. There is no (see also: none, nil, nyet, zero) scientific evidence for the existence of God.
Now, I’m not a conservative blowhard because I am a thinker and what occurs to me here is that the argument I’ve just made stands up pretty well.
A while back Glenn did a special report on the “End Times” prophecy contained in certain books of the bible. He reported the book of Revelation as though it were fact. He then engaged in a ridiculous discussion with Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (authors of the Left Behind series of books) as well as Joel Rosenberg (former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) drawing inane parallels between the biblical apocalypse and current affairs.
Somehow Glenn Beck does not see that the book of Revelation is not sound foreign policy.
But that’s not the worst of it. If Glenn was merely a clueless blowhard I could let it go. If he were just another conservative talking head I’d pass him by without a second thought—even if his show is, as he claims, the fastest growing on CNN Headline News.
But that’s not the case.
The problem, the real deep problem with Glenn Beck is that his simplistic view of the world is as dangerous as it is viral. His dualistic thinking is not only childish in it’s “good guys wear white hats and bad guys wear black hats” simplicity but damaging to the truth.
For one to follow Glenn’s thinking one must believe in the totally outmoded concepts of pure good and pure evil. One must also subscribe to the idea that the U.S.A., capitalism and conservatism stand on the side of pure good while everyone who opposes those ideas in any way is pure evil.
While it is unfortunate that Glenn does not have the capacity to understand subtlety, to discern shades of gray or to appreciate all of life’s nuances; it is tragic that he convinces people to wear the same blinders he does. To separate the world into two, to see the world in binary, is to ignore reality in favour of something much easier to grasp but far more dangerous to believe.
We believe in dualities because they’re easy. There was a time in human history when we needed simplistic thought to survive. We had to believe that another tribe’s motive was evil and that they must be exterminated to prevent unwanted competition for food. We had to believe that good was on our side. We had to believe everything had intention one way or the other and that that intention was either for or against us.
But this is an archaic and outmoded form of thinking. We are capable of far more complex thought now and I believe we are obligated to use that capacity. We can afford, now, to try to understand others. We are able, if we so choose, to sit down and discuss matters. We have at our disposal modes of thinking that allow us to consider complex situations critically and come to more insightful conclusions.
The good guys don’t wear white hats. There are no good guys. The bad guys don’t wear black hats. There are no bad guys. To pick sides on an issue because it’s deemed “conservative” or “liberal” is stupid and all too easy.
In any given situation there is a best option but that option isn’t always the simplest one. It’s not always the one on the right or the one on the left. And until we do away with these silly binary methods of problem solving we may never see the best option. Remember, Neo-conservatives are the only real Marxists left on earth as they’re the only ones who still believe in economic determinism. And the Green Party has some pretty draconian ideas about personal freedoms regarding health.
There is no black, there is no white. There is a lot of grey though. And I think we’d all do much better to see in full colour. And in high-definition… if it’s available in your area.
Glenn Beck, the host of the eponymous Glenn Beck show on CNN Headline News, is the sort of dumbed-down conservative that does what any good liberal had formerly believed was impossible. He makes conservatism look even more out of touch with reality than Reagan and the voodoo economists of the eighties did.
Here’s how I got there:
I’ve been watching Beck’s show at least once or twice a week for the last two years or so. At first he seemed like a relatively harmless moderate conservative who really didn’t know what he was talking about.
I’m afraid that now he seems like an increasingly, absurdly radical conservative spewing dangerous garbage that undereducated Americans lap up with abandon. And he still has no fucking clue what he’s talking about.
Here’s a fellow who has a highschool education, a history of alcohol and drug abuse and is a Mormon. And I’m supposed to take his opinion seriously? Especially on issues as important as terrorism and climate change?
I’ve got a highschool education, a history of substance abuse and no religious convictions whatsoever and no one listens to me! And at least I can verify that I read about and consider the issues—this is apparently not true of Beck’s approach to current events.
One of Glenn’s favourite sayings involves telling people what he’s not (ie: “I’m not a New York Times Editor”) and then reminding us that he is “a thinker”. The only trouble with this Glenn-ism is that it’s abundantly clear that this man is not a thinker.
An example would be his criticism of public schools for choosing to make Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth part of the curriculum. He complained that it was too hard to get God into schools and impossible to get climate change out.
Maybe you need a little help, maybe you can’t understand this either. Allow me to point out the flaw in Glenn’s “thinking”:
Climate change is discussed and should be discussed in public schools because—whether or not you choose to listen—there is ample scientific evidence for the existence of climate change, for the probable severity of its effects and the likelihood that it is anthropogenic. There is no (see also: none, nil, nyet, zero) scientific evidence for the existence of God.
Now, I’m not a conservative blowhard because I am a thinker and what occurs to me here is that the argument I’ve just made stands up pretty well.
A while back Glenn did a special report on the “End Times” prophecy contained in certain books of the bible. He reported the book of Revelation as though it were fact. He then engaged in a ridiculous discussion with Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins (authors of the Left Behind series of books) as well as Joel Rosenberg (former advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) drawing inane parallels between the biblical apocalypse and current affairs.
Somehow Glenn Beck does not see that the book of Revelation is not sound foreign policy.
But that’s not the worst of it. If Glenn was merely a clueless blowhard I could let it go. If he were just another conservative talking head I’d pass him by without a second thought—even if his show is, as he claims, the fastest growing on CNN Headline News.
But that’s not the case.
The problem, the real deep problem with Glenn Beck is that his simplistic view of the world is as dangerous as it is viral. His dualistic thinking is not only childish in it’s “good guys wear white hats and bad guys wear black hats” simplicity but damaging to the truth.
For one to follow Glenn’s thinking one must believe in the totally outmoded concepts of pure good and pure evil. One must also subscribe to the idea that the U.S.A., capitalism and conservatism stand on the side of pure good while everyone who opposes those ideas in any way is pure evil.
While it is unfortunate that Glenn does not have the capacity to understand subtlety, to discern shades of gray or to appreciate all of life’s nuances; it is tragic that he convinces people to wear the same blinders he does. To separate the world into two, to see the world in binary, is to ignore reality in favour of something much easier to grasp but far more dangerous to believe.
We believe in dualities because they’re easy. There was a time in human history when we needed simplistic thought to survive. We had to believe that another tribe’s motive was evil and that they must be exterminated to prevent unwanted competition for food. We had to believe that good was on our side. We had to believe everything had intention one way or the other and that that intention was either for or against us.
But this is an archaic and outmoded form of thinking. We are capable of far more complex thought now and I believe we are obligated to use that capacity. We can afford, now, to try to understand others. We are able, if we so choose, to sit down and discuss matters. We have at our disposal modes of thinking that allow us to consider complex situations critically and come to more insightful conclusions.
The good guys don’t wear white hats. There are no good guys. The bad guys don’t wear black hats. There are no bad guys. To pick sides on an issue because it’s deemed “conservative” or “liberal” is stupid and all too easy.
In any given situation there is a best option but that option isn’t always the simplest one. It’s not always the one on the right or the one on the left. And until we do away with these silly binary methods of problem solving we may never see the best option. Remember, Neo-conservatives are the only real Marxists left on earth as they’re the only ones who still believe in economic determinism. And the Green Party has some pretty draconian ideas about personal freedoms regarding health.
There is no black, there is no white. There is a lot of grey though. And I think we’d all do much better to see in full colour. And in high-definition… if it’s available in your area.
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