Beck has risen to national fame in the last decade, initially a radio commentator and now also as a televised political pundit, largely by taking radical stands on political issues and making bold statements intended to shock rather than inform. His radio program was nationally syndicated in 2002 and amassed such a large audience that it has since been picked up by XM radio and he can be seen daily on the Fox News channel.
My problem with Beck is not the man himself. He is like many other modern Americans in that he feels disillusioned with the country, our leadership, ideals, cultural identity and so forth. In a man's own home and among the company he keeps he is entitled to share his feelings and ideologies. He is even allowed to demonstrate these ideals publicly in the appropriate forum. In more intimate environments such as these it is tolerable, although still ill-advised, to make shocking or gratuitously flamboyant declarations which serve no constructive purpose. However, to do this in a scenario where these declarations reach the ears of millions is unacceptable.
Glenn Beck has made his name and reputation in broadcasting by doing just this. Although he claims to be a Libertarian in his personal life, his media persona endorses "Conservative" Republican ideals and frequently uses similar labels of "left/right wing", "liberal/conservative" and others to create a sort of "us Vs. them" mentality in his viewers. He has frequently stirred up controversy with extreme statements and conspiratorial claims regarding those he considers ideological opponents and this has greatly contributed to his high ratings. A few examples of these antics include an instance this year where Beck called President Barack Obama:
"a racist...who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture..."
That is an actual quote, not taken out of context, and spoken on live television this year. In the same discussion on the "Fox & Friends" program, Beck goes on to say regarding the topic of race in America:
"Most Americans...are being forced to live in a politically correct world, and I've said this for awhile now, and I don't know exactly what this means, it's just something that I just feel...there's gonna come a time when the people who have been forced to live in a politically correct world...gonna come a time when the public is just going to say, 'I'm not living in your politically correct world and I don't care anymore'."It seems clear to me that many of Beck's statements likely regard things to which he doesn't know the meaning but has a feeling about. Those feelings certainly appear to be passionate but passion is often misguided. In the case of calling the President "a racist" even the Fox News network and Beck's colleagues backed away from these comments, something that doesn't happen nearly often enough.
Another example is the image to the right, a screenshot of his TV program where the text clearly states "We're on the road to the Hitler Youth". This segment was a response to President Obama's request that students of all ages around the country watch a speech Obama had recorded regarding the role of their academic success on their personal and national future. The text of that speech was also published in newspapers all over the country. Somehow Beck took in that information and this is what came out on his radio show:
"Gang, you have a system that is wildly, wildly out of control, and they are capturing your kids. As Van Jones himself has said, 'the earlier we get the kids, the earlier we make this adjustment with the youth, the easier this transition is going to be'. Stand guard America. Your republic is under attack."Van Jones, as referenced in the above quote, was the Obama administration's special advisor regarding green jobs for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones was forced to resign his post this September due to a vicious smear campaign maneuvered by Beck and other Fox News employees regarding his past political endorsements. As if that wasn't bad enough Beck misquotes him entirely there in order to lend credibility to his "Obama Youth" rant. Van Jones' actual quote was regarding the potential growth of clean power industries and reads thusly:
"If we can get these youth in on the ground floor of the solar industry now, where they can be installers today, they’ll become managers in five years and owners in 10. And then they become inventors. The green economy has the power to deliver new sources of work, wealth and health to low-income people—while honoring the Earth."These are only two examples and yet they show how Beck uses controversial, misleading and/or entirely misquoted material in order to keep his audience glued to their sets. Even with all of that, I don't believe the outrageous things Glenn Beck says or does on-air are the real problem. Any reasonably educated person can watch his show for five minutes, change the channel with a laugh and say, "What nonsense!" The real problem is that the number of reasonably educated Americans is dropping like a stone.
In the case of Obama's speech on the value of education and academic effort, as I mentioned, the text was published on countless news websites as well as newspapers all over the country. Anyone able to read could take the time to breeze through and understand it was not a call for the youth to organize and rise up for the will of their ruler. Considering the negative response many Republican had regarding this innocent and positive speech, not forgetting the television pundits who fueled it, I would call it a clear indication that the sources and quality of information have shifted in America. It is no longer the written word, wether digital or printed on paper, that moves the world.
I believe that when television became the primary medium for communication and public discourse in America everything changed for the worse. This decay did not start when television news began with the likes of Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite but over time news and entertainment began to fuse and we are currently experiencing the result as Fox News.
Glenn Beck is the perfect example of this. For instance, what credentials award him the privilege of being broadcast daily on a national television network and command a seven-figure salary annually? Well, if you watched the interview he gave Katie Couric you will know that he is not, nor has he ever been, a journalist. He admits he has no college education and speaks from his gut rather than from any substantial education or journalistic source. His success as a media personality can be credited to his affinity for spreading feelings of resentment and fear among his viewers. But again, whose fault is that? Is it Beck's for holding down a job he is under-qualified for? Is Fox News to blame for employing a man lacking the proper credentials? Or is it the viewing public for largely abandoning critical thinking? The answer, in my estimation, is all of the above.
As much as Beck and other television demagogues are solely at fault for the damaging misinformation and rhetoric they tout, we the viewing public are as much in the wrong for allowing it to go on. If no one watched Beck on TV or listened to his radio show then he would likely be working at a car wash or handing you back your dry-cleaning at the mall. If we all read the paper and went to our local town hall meetings we would know faulty information when we heard it. Sadly that is not the world we live in. Information is available in an ever-growing overabundance and irrelevance is everywhere. Every generation that is born into this information age will know less and less about the quality of life which existed before it.
In this environment the youth will no longer know how to think for themselves or even want to. The fact that American citizens listen to Beck and others in such large numbers indicates a total lack of education and attention span. Adults of this variety will pass these tendencies along to their next generation and it will perpetuate for as long as we tolerate this kind of conduct from our media.
