I like Beck, but I’m not enamored with him. Of course, I tend to look negatively on any “cult-like” treatment of people. People let us down.
Maybe I overreact sometimes, but I see danger in cults of personality. We need to be about ideas, not the people who espouse them. When people fall into personality cults, they stop thinking about the ideas, and start defending the person, even when the person isn’t making any sense.
With Beck (and it’s not his fault, it’s the people listening), you see it here at FR, you can hardly discuss anything negative about him without some people making personal attacks.
The same is true for Sarah Palin. Her biggest problem on the right is a subset of followers who essentially worship her, making it difficult to discuss anything about her without it turning into a personal slugfest.
Of course, all candidates have this. Romney’s an interesting example, because he had a cult of followers, AND a cult of non-followers, so you can’t ever have a discussion of anything Romney says without it turning into a set of meaningless personal attacks.
But other candidates have their own cults that follow them around. And our popular talk show hosts also have some people who do worship them rather than the message, although even using the term “worship” is going to get me in trouble — I don’t mean “worship” in a religious sense.
If we focus on the issues, policies, ideology, then we can be largely immune to being misled by a popular “leader”. I’ve seen local politics overrun by these cult-like leaders who grab an issue, use bombastic language and disregard for facts to gather a large following, and then use that following to advance their own pet causes.
They get so powerful that elected leaders have to listen to them, rather than doing what is right. And when later they are revealed to be flawed characters, it hurts the cause.
I liked the Tea Party movement, because it wasn’t about a person, it was about an idea. We need to guard against that movement being taken over by a person.
The pro-life movement is a great example of a movement that never fell into the trap of following a person. So when some “pro-life leader” ends up having some scandal, it doesn’t effect the movement.
I can understand that others do have a thing for people over ideology. I’ve always felt for example that churches should regularly change pastors, so that the church would be about doctrine and not about the pastor. But that’s because churches I belong to have tended to go through pastors. Now we’ve had the same guy for almost 15 years, and I wouldn’t mind getting a new pastor, but others are happy we finally have “stability”. To each their own.
I’ve just seen how when a pastor is around a long time, people start following the pastor rather than the church, and then if the pastor goes off the deep end on some theological issue, and is forced to leave, the church splits.
So I don’t want to attack Glenn Beck, or Levin, or Hannity, or Limbaugh. I just don’t think any of them are my “leader”. And because I don’t “worship” them, I think it’s easier for me to judge what they say, and determine when they are simply wrong.
I'm glad he's there for the moment. I'm glad he can help get the word out about ACORN for example. He'll be a great mouthpiece on Afganistan if Zero fumbles badly. He may help save lives.
Not too worried about Beck becoming a cult figure even though some may consider him that way now; I think he'll likely be hot for a time then people will get tired of him. That is...unless he fools me and proves himself to be more adaptable than I think he is. I think we need his firepower for now.
I agree that people are tending these days to look for perfect people. Can't be done. I laugh when a new idol is discovered, then dropped like a hot potato by conservatives the minute he/she shows a fault. Ex: Bobby Jindal was the hottest thing around until he had a so-so post SOTU performance. Now I hardly ever see his name on this forum. Makes me laugh.
Well stated.
I don't like the Obama cult-of-personality. It would be crazy and nuts to try to build one on our side as a response.
It's time people realized that is is their own responsibility, self-worth, individualism, and patriotism that is needed for America to succeed, not the blind following of any leader. We need servant leaders, but those servant leaders will never be perfect.
"If we focus on the issues, policies, ideology, then we can be largely immune to being misled by a popular “leader”. I’ve seen local politics overrun by these cult-like leaders who grab an issue, use bombastic language and disregard for facts to gather a large following, and then use that following to advance their own pet causes."
Yes, indeed. Very unhealthy.
“So I don’t want to attack Glenn Beck, or Levin, or Hannity, or Limbaugh. I just don’t think any of them are my “leader”. And because I don’t “worship” them, I think it’s easier for me to judge what they say, and determine when they are simply wrong.”
Good point. Beck and Gutfeld from Red Eye are popular with young people who don’t follow politics. Young people generally don’t listen to talk radio (Limbaugh, Levin, etc.) If Beck gets young people interested in what is happening to their country, then its a good thing. Conservative spokesmouths need to hang together or we will all go down together.
You absolutely nailed it, my FRiend.