Arguing with Idiots
Why Glenn Beck's New Book Comes Up Short
Alex Heiney
Last Updated: 12/29/09 Section: Books and Arts
Like a skilled politician, Beck is also more than aware of which issues to discuss and which to avoid to massage his message. I'm not especially thrilled about the "iron cage" of bureaucracy that seems to spring from our government, but I also think it's important to be critical of corporations. Beck doesn't even mention oil speculation by investment banks like J.P. Morgan as a reason for the skyrocketing oil prices last year. If corporations do bad things, it's through lobbying the government. And I'm all for debating just how much regulation corporations should have, but I'm certain they should have some considering that some of the financial collapse had to do with short term greed and obsession with share prices, not just government stupidity. In Beck's world, anything anti-free market can be tarred "Marxist" or "communist," but even a basic treatment of Big Business seems to be lacking in a book concerned with demonstrating how evil Big Government is.
As I progressed through the book I finally realized the true source of its appeal. Beck may do a decent job explaining his stance on issues, but he is even better at defining the terms of debate. Beck uses a snarky tone to immediately frame for his audience whether they should see something in a positive or negative light. He uses terms like "progressive," which Beck clearly defines, in terms of education at least, as a belief that teachers aren't in a classroom to tell a student what is right or wrong. Beck, who is afraid of teachers indoctrinating our students into the new liberal movement, should be glad teachers are allowing students to express themselves and find out what the truth is themselves. But Beck takes this to the extreme and paints the progressive education movement as its fringe of schools in which students don't get grades and are coddled at all times. If common terms like "progressive" are defined in such a way, it is impossible to debate the issue's real merits. At the end of Arguing with Idiots, Beck interprets the U.S. Constitution for us, but rather than offering well-reasoned positions as he does in his chapter about the Second Amendment, here Beck simply asserts and generalizes his way through his opinion on how to read the Constitution.
As I progressed through the book I finally realized the true source of its appeal. Beck may do a decent job explaining his stance on issues, but he is even better at defining the terms of debate. Beck uses a snarky tone to immediately frame for his audience whether they should see something in a positive or negative light. He uses terms like "progressive," which Beck clearly defines, in terms of education at least, as a belief that teachers aren't in a classroom to tell a student what is right or wrong. Beck, who is afraid of teachers indoctrinating our students into the new liberal movement, should be glad teachers are allowing students to express themselves and find out what the truth is themselves. But Beck takes this to the extreme and paints the progressive education movement as its fringe of schools in which students don't get grades and are coddled at all times. If common terms like "progressive" are defined in such a way, it is impossible to debate the issue's real merits. At the end of Arguing with Idiots, Beck interprets the U.S. Constitution for us, but rather than offering well-reasoned positions as he does in his chapter about the Second Amendment, here Beck simply asserts and generalizes his way through his opinion on how to read the Constitution.
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