A taping of the Glenn Beck show last night was my first view inside the media-maligned but popularly acclaimed Fox News Network, as I joined thirty or so college-age conservatives in a feature titled “Time to be Heard: Young Conservatives.” Held as a town hall-style discussion, blackboards notwithstanding, Beck directed the group’s conversation to topics including the perils of conservatism in university life, the meaning of charity in a liberal democracy, and the nation’s political trajectory.
The students were the typical young Republican crowd—earnest and sprightly, policy wonkish, and insatiably concerned with national spending, healthcare, student loan economics, and government-expansionist policies. Surprisingly, of the ten or so students who spoke during the program, only two students—a female John Jay student and another female student from NYU—broached social topics, mentioning their pro-life views. As anyone who endured high school parliamentary debate can attest, it’s possible to get fired up about nearly anything, but—perhaps I’m just naïve—I had a hard time understanding the students’ passion for economic policy without requisite mention of social issues, which, after all, concern the rights upon which all policy is predicated.
After the taping concluded, Beck spoke to our group briefly, asking us how he might use his show to help young conservatives’ voices be heard. Inception (2010) While it’s hard to critique Beck’s well-developed, catchy, casual shtick, I couldn’t help but think his show would benefit from, well, a more academic engagement of conservative ideas. Beck is, in his own words, an entertainer as much as a critic, and at one point cited his aversion to confrontation. But I’ve seen him do well with confrontation, and on other occasions, well with intellectual conservative guests. If he can use his wildly successful platform for the good of young conservative college students, inviting a few more conservative intellectuals on his show might be the best move.
“Time to be Heard: Young Conservatives” will air at 5pm on Friday, April 9th on the Fox News Channel.
April 7th, 2010 | 7:02 pm
Kevin, you make an excellent point. I often wonder if there are young conservatives at all; being thirty years old myself, I find myself all alone at times. I am certainly not advocating some type of pseudo-intellectualism that leftists are known for but I would like to see more, as you write, engagement, more dialogue, more intelligence. I watch the old episodes of “Firing Line,” and I know that what Buckley did is unrepeatable. Still, there is hope burning inside of me that we can have faith and reason work in concert again; where conservatism does not devolve into a tepid, populist movement but rather a “movement” of individuals committed first and foremost to truth. Only then can the dialogue begin.
April 7th, 2010 | 10:12 pm
This just shows how morally and culturally bankrupt the conservative movement in the USA really is.
When it turns to Beck as an adviser and mentor.
April 7th, 2010 | 10:33 pm
Emina, I’m interested in how what you see as the pseudo-intellectualism of the Left differs from the lack of sufficient engagement, dialogue and intelligence you find on the Right. The hope that burns inside me is that at least a few voices on the Christian Right will have the courage and integrity to denounce and disassociate themselves from Beck, Palin, Gateway Pundit and the like and their free-swinging, cheap shot moral shtick. A Christian political voice is a loving voice or it is not in fact a Christian voice.
April 7th, 2010 | 10:49 pm
The best thing Beck could do for Young Conservatives is to stop doing his show. And the best thing those young Republicans could do for conservatism is to quit the party.
Okay, I think I’ve gotten all the snark out of my system. But that doesn’t mean I’m not serious about both of those.
April 7th, 2010 | 11:18 pm
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April 8th, 2010 | 6:57 am
God help America if these young conservatives, mentored by Beck, ever gained positions of power and influence in the world.
Personally I would not let any of them anywhere near by grand-childrens play group.
April 8th, 2010 | 9:29 am
Beck was fine on CNN. A little nutty, but I enjoyed watching him. He’s gone crazy since joining Fox, and it’s a little painful to watch. His show could benefit from a lot less hectoring and appeals to common sense, and a bit more casual conversation/debate with and between conservative and liberal intellectuals. Provided said intellectuals are of the long-legged-blonde-with-cleavage variety that Fox News is so fond of.
April 8th, 2010 | 9:43 am
It does bring out the point that Beck & Palin do bring out sharp differences. Perhaps it is because they put out in sharp reality the unintended consequences of socially good intentions.
A good example might be Greece or Spain, with some other European countries not far behind. In the case of Spain, going “green” was supposed to create jobs. It ended up losing jobs and increased unemployment. In Greece, the socialization of entitlements has virtually bankrupt the country. So what will Greece do now?
This might be a result of the government taking over of what should be the responsibility of the individual. But at first, it’s easier for the government to do it, later on, the piper WILL be paid. In the case of this country, who will pay the interest on the debt that’s occurring, let alone the principal? Look at the insolvency facing SS & Medicare. It’s like the housing “bubble” those who went into debt got burned, those lived within their means have generally came off a lot better, and still have their homes.
April 8th, 2010 | 10:03 am
It does bring out the point that Beck & Palin do bring out sharp differences. Perhaps it is because they put out in sharp reality the unintended consequences of socially good intentions.
If they would stick to doing that and quit name-calling and impugning motives and inciting hatred (and then playing innocent and disavowing responsibility for it), they would have my respect.
April 8th, 2010 | 10:40 am
Wow, a lot of snarky anti-Fox, anti-Beck-ness without much dialogue. As to Kevin’s main point — “I had a hard time understanding the students’ passion for economic policy without requisite mention of social issues, which, after all, concern the rights upon which all policy is predicated” — I believe this is the possible point of fissure within the current rise of conservatism because for decades now, students have been taught to believe that there is no absolute truth regarding social issues and consequently, they cannot see a right path rooted in Christian truth, let alone validly advocate for it politically. Thus the silence.
The good news here is that this is where Christians of all political bents can serve Christ’s call to go out among the nations and teach His word. Even more importantly, Christians need to go out and LIVE His word, without backing down and without compromise when it comes to absolute moral truths, such as the right to life. It is the responsibility of every Christian to bring God’s truth back into the public sphere of political and social discussion, not as sledgehammer of persuasion but as a witness to the dignity of every human life and the value contained therein; and I will absolutely give credit to Beck and Palin, Beck foremost, for recognizing the need to restore God to His place of sovereignty in discussing how this country best serves its people, and for having the courage to do it. That old silencer, separation of church and state, has no power once we realize that the separation was meant merely to limit the government from imposing a religion upon the people, NOT to keep opinions grounded in theology out of the public sphere.
April 8th, 2010 | 10:52 am
Beck is an entertainer but actually is fairly academic in my view. What other shows regularly feature serious professors like Prestritto and Niall Ferguson. In fact, an entire website has been created to trace Beck’s philosophic themes. http://beckstudies.blogspot.com/
April 8th, 2010 | 10:57 am
Ken, I actually agree with most of what you’ve said. By speaking about the pseudo-intellectualism of the Left, I by no means am giving a green light to Glenn Beck and his idea of conversation. His style does not interest me and sometimes, he sees things way too simply (witness recent comments about “social justice”). However, the Right never claims to be “intellectual,” whereas the Left does and they are pretty loud about. In fact, they become quite elitist as well. So, in conclusion, yes, there has to be a level of dialogue on both sides. The difference being that the Right (the Glenn Beck kind of Right) is mostly speaking the truth underneath that loud and obnoxious exterior, whereas the Left mostly enagages in support of deviant behaviors (see abortion, IVF therapy, etc.).
April 8th, 2010 | 12:37 pm
Uh, Ken,
You write these words: “Beck, Palin, Gateway Pundit and the like and their free-swinging, cheap shot moral shtick”. Tell me, Ken, how do these words demonstrate that loving, Christian voice you claim to value?
April 8th, 2010 | 12:40 pm
Emina, thank you for explaining. I have more respect for the Left than you do, but while they’re often loud and abusive as the Right, Jim Wallis and other Christian progressives are not. My concern is that most of the Christian Right, First Things included, is throwing away its witness by cheering the nasties. Erin’s notion that Beck and Palin deserve credit for “recognizing the need to restore God to His place of sovereignty in discussing how this country best serves its people” is ludicrous. Would Wallis command respect as a Christian if he was snarky like Keith Olberman? Would his views deserve to be rebutted as misguided by Christian views? The reason the CR isn’t making converts is that good ends don’t justify degraded means. In lacking integrity, it lacks a distinctive, Christian voice.
April 8th, 2010 | 12:57 pm
We might increasingly apply “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind” to the conservative movement.
Beck, Palin, Levin etc are not Limbaugh and Ingraham, and none of them are Buckley, Will, etc.
We need fierce but reasonable debate, and we’re simply not getting it fro most conservative media, all of whom seem more interested in impugning lattes, NPR and Volvos than they do actually engaging with ideas. Rush loves to say that we are the party of ideas, and in general, he’s right. But we cease to be the party of ideas if we ridicule our opponents. I’m twenty-eight, and if I started counting out all my friends and acquaintances who vote Democrat because they fit the liberal mold – organic, free-range, recycled, local – and then were told by conservatives that they had to be liberal because they weren’t “authentic Americans”, I’d be counting all day.
But shouldn’t people make up their minds based on reason and not rhetoric? Of course! But it doesn’t matter either way if they are still voting for the left…
April 8th, 2010 | 2:56 pm
Mark, criticism is not by nature unloving and un-Christlike. If you want to dispute my characterization of Beck, Palin and Gateway Pundit, please do. Please defend Beck’s calling Obama a racist. Defend Palin’s mocking of Obama for his attempt to serve his community. Defend the completely partisan nature of Gateway Pundit, where every post is critical of the Left and nothing critical is ever said about the Right, where Obama’s motives are constantly impugned and remarks like “F*&% Obama” “I can’t wait until he gets what’s coming to him,” “pansy in chief,” “leftard,” “jackass,” “moron,” “nutroots,” “that SOB,” “this bastard,” “bHUSSEINo,” etc. are common.
April 8th, 2010 | 4:12 pm
Many years ago, the definition of an “expert” was “any man with a briefcase who was more than 50 miles from home.”
I wonder what the modern equivalent definition of an “intellectual” would be. Any suggestions?
April 8th, 2010 | 10:33 pm
Ken: Name-calling and other ad hominem attacks should be deplored wherever they rear their heads; however, you seem reluctant to acknowledge that the problem exists on the left just as much as on the right. It wasn’t so long ago that people on the left were routinely saying f–k Bush. And many on the left continue to hurl accusations of racism or homophobia whenever they are disagreed with. The problem is a lack of charity and self-discipline, and it cuts across political differences.
April 9th, 2010 | 7:43 am
Paul, I wrote that “I have more respect for the Left than you do, but while they’re often loud and abusive as the Right, Jim Wallis and other Christian progressives are not.” The issue for me here is how self-professed Christians act, and act in Christ’s name.
April 9th, 2010 | 7:48 am
By the way, by “self-professed Christians” I didn’t mean to call into question the sincerity of anyone’s faith, only to note that we’re perceived as hypocrites, and we impede the gospel, when we don’t act like Christ.
April 9th, 2010 | 12:26 pm
Ken: Standards of civilized debate should be expected of everyone engaging in political discourse. They have no uniquely Christian applicability. Indeed, to the extent that Christians have dared to engage in the much more exalted discourse of evangelization (and I do not say that Beck and other “nasties” are so engaged) their means have not always been gentle. Were Christ or the saints being “nasty” when they spoke the ugly truth, even when that meant calling people “whited sepulchres,” “fools,” not to mention other choice epithets?
April 9th, 2010 | 1:12 pm
Paul, of course everyone should be civil, but it is we Christians who are the hypocrites when we use or provide a platform for the language I cited from Gateway Pundit. And when we’re perfect and perfectly loving, as Christ was, or when we have the spiritual authority of the apostles, then we’ll have the right to use harsh language about other people’s spiritual life (and then and only then will that language have any chance of opening people’s eyes instead of just hardening their defenses). In the meantime, kindly go back to that list of epithets I cited. Can you tell me with a straight face that Jesus would have used any of them? Let’s stick to the facts and not make excuses.
April 9th, 2010 | 4:12 pm
Ken: I’m not making excuses. I’m only introducing distinctions.
I don’t suppose Jesus would have used the Aramaic equivalents of the epithets you cited. On the other hand, he did particularly love a hot-headed apostle who wanted to call fire from heaven down on people.
The point is, I don’t think we should make easy judgments about how Christian someone is, based simply on how they react in the highly artificial world of political controversy. Incivility should be disapproved, to be sure, but don’t rush to the conclusion that someone is a fake Christian merely for calling a politician names. Politics itself is too fake to support such a generalization.
Also, I don’t know what you mean about Palin mocking Obama “for his attempt to serve his community.”
April 9th, 2010 | 6:10 pm
Paul, I’m afraid I don’t understand the point of your distinction. I have no problem with strong criticism, and I make it myself. It’s the mean-spiritedness and the pettiness and the eagerness to believe the worst about the Left that I object to on the Christian Right and don’t see mirrored on the Christian Left.
And I’m afraid too that this is the 2nd time you’ve rebutted a point I explicitly said I was not making. I wrote that “by “self-professed Christians” I didn’t mean to call into question the sincerity of anyone’s faith . . .”
In regards to Palin, during her convention nomination speech in 2008 she said that her being governor was kind of like being a community organizer with actual responsibility. Jesus wasn’t snarky.
April 9th, 2010 | 8:56 pm
Ken,
I think perhaps you should spend a little bit of time on the Sojourner’s blog if you don’t think the Christian Left engages in the same mean-spiritedness and snarky behavior as does the Right. Pay special attention to the Catholics like Gehring and Baldomar (sp) who blog, and then tell us if you think they are any different than the Right. I voted for Obama and usually vote Democratic, but I’m getting darned sick and tired of hearing that the Left is more loving than the Right.
April 9th, 2010 | 10:58 pm
danderson, I’ll do that. Thank you. Tell me — and I don’t mean this sarcastically, but I really want to know — does Wallis allow the same evident hatred, as measured by objectifying epithets, as Bottum allows on GP?
April 10th, 2010 | 9:03 am
danderson, I’ve just read perhaps 20 posts by Baldelomar and Gehring, and I can’t imagine what you’re talking about. The only harsh judgment I can find is one reference to George Weigel as “arrogant.” I find no name-calling, no vituperation, and no snark, all of which typify Gateway Pundit posts and comments.
April 10th, 2010 | 9:45 pm
John – If you think conservatives are morally bankrupt, take a look at the democRATS (if you have an open mind that is, but that’s doubtful). You must love socialism and marxism, and maybe even communism, because that is the type of people who are in power now, and that is the direction the country is heading. If you don’t realize that by now, you must be brain-dead.
April 11th, 2010 | 10:47 am
Gary:
1) People can believe one party to be morally bankrupt without thinking well of the opposition party or holding its views.
2) People with open minds don’t presume people who disagree with them have closed minds or are brain dead.
3) People who can defend their views don’t need to characterize their opponents as rats.
April 12th, 2010 | 8:31 pm
Ken: I read your disclaimer that you “did not mean to call into question the sincerity of anyone’s faith.” Fair enough, but you clearly meant to imply that a certain class of people (including, presumably, Palin) is not authentically Christian, and this on the sole ground that they mock or insult political figures on the left. I took your disclaimer to mean that, while such people may be foolish enough to think they’re Christian, they are in reality nothing of the sort. That is where I wanted to introduce a distinction between what someone says in the heat of political argument versus the whole tenor of their lives, which may (for all we know) be authentically Christian. For example, in regards to Palin, her decision to love and raise a Down Syndrome child speaks far more eloquently than any allegedly rancorous speech she made against a political opponent. In other words, I think we differ, not in blaming political rancor, but in evaluating its relative importance in the Christian life.
The distinction I was trying to make was made much better by C.S. Lewis in The Screwtape Letters. The demon Screwtape speaks of how disappointing political hatred can be (how, for instance, certain Englishmen shout that torture is too good for their enemies, only to give tea and biscuits to the first wounded German that turns up at their door). Similarly, I think we should give hot-headed people (on the right and the left) the benefit of the doubt that their unkind expressions may be only skin-deep. Perhaps this distinction is meaningless or irrelevant to you, but I do think it needs to be made.
Let us also not forget that identity politics in 21st century America touches on so many fundamental cultural issues, it is no wonder if people lose their cool.
Overall, I agree with you that good ends don’t justify degraded means. The Christian right needs to work on that. But, even conceding that the means used by the Christian left are better, what are its ends? I would be grateful for a summary of their party platform. Obviously, if any of their ends are intrinsically evil, as I believe many of the political left’s ends are, then they remain evil, even if they are pursued with social grace.
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