I'm sharing this with you in the hope that it will render Mr. Beck more easily-understood for you as well. I don't expect you to agree with him (I sure as hell don't). My hope is to spare you the brain-explosion that comes from listening to him contradict himself for hours on end.
Like so many Glenn-Beck-related epiphanies, this one sprung from one such contradiction. I was pondering Beck's dual-insistence that A) progressives have ruined this country and B) the founding fathers would not have stood for such an outrage.
How could someone think that? I wondered. Did he not believe that women deserved the right to vote, public schools should be racially integrated (or, for that matter, exist), and certain services (firefighting, police work, library collections) should be publicly funded and operated? No, I reminded myself, he doesn't have problem with progressive achievements, he has a problem with what he sees as progressive goals. You know, the whole "Revolution vs. Evolution" thing? Progressives aren't bad because they want to improve society. Progressives are bad because they want that society to keep changing and changing until it becomes communism. Right.
But then, what of the founding fathers? Weren't they the ones who started the whole progressive ball rolling in this country? I mean, what's more progressive than starting your own country? The conservative thing to do, in the fathers' time, would have been to continue negotiating. It took progressive vision -- radical vision -- to look at the British Empire and say, "Fuck 'em. We'll do it our own way." That's not just evolution, it's revolution. Literally. It's like Glenn Beck is content with this one progressive act in American history, but he thinks we should have stopped there. Like the union was perfect from the start ...
That's when I realized that Glenn Beck views the founding of this country as a Biblical event. The founders created America and saw that it was good, and anyone who challenges their word, anyone who seeks to build on it or interpret it, is questioning its infallible nature.
So the next time you're unfortunate enough to hear Glenn Beck talking and attempt to make sense of it, keep in mind that, for him, the founders are gods, and the Declaration and the Constitution are divinely-inspired scripture. From this perspective, any attempt to change or improve upon their model becomes heresy, and some of Beck's more absurd statements suddenly make more sense.
2 comments:
I've been reading your blog for some time and have enjoyed your posts but never actually commented. I too am an Ithaca journalism grad, though I am deeply fascinated by religion. I like your idea of America's biblical founding moment, but I think you can take it further.
A good number of religious (read: Christian) Americans view the nation's founding as a divine event. America has always been seen by some as the new promised land (and the founding of Israel has done wonders in the supposed fulfillment of the events mentioned in Revelation). These people tend to associate history and contemporary events as not only divinely guided, but also predicted by the bible. So your conception of the founding of America as a divine event is spot-on. Glenn Beck is just one of a long line of people to consider it so.
Glenn Beck is not creating a new mythology, he is utilizing the religious mythology (in a non-pejorative sense of the term) that is already in place. I would argue that Glenn Beck does not see the founders as God. Rather he sees them as leaders or prophets, like Moses or David. The founding fathers were intermediaries for doing God's will on earth. You're spot-on with the Constitution as divine revealed scripture, though.
On a side note, Glenn Beck seems to be tremendously informed by his Mormon faith. If you're interested in understanding even more about him, I'd recommend checking out a show on the subject on the Interfaith Voices podcast. Mormonism, it must be mentioned, concerns itself deeply with America and business.
I enjoy the blog - keep it up!
Thanks for reading Chris. Your point about Beck's religious perspective on the country's founding is well-taken (I wish I had thought of it when I was writing this post).
I think I never noticed it before in part because Beck is the first (and most powerful) media personality in my lifetime to draw such an explicit connection between his personal faith, the nation's history, and his political beliefs. It's part of what makes him such a fascinating (if ridiculous) individual.
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