Embracing idiocy

[BobcatJH]

I realize that starting a thought with "Last night, Glenn Beck said ..." is the intellectual equivalent of saying "Watch this ..." before you abuse some inhalants, so bear with me. Because, before too long, it will all make sense. On Wednesday's episode of Glenn Beck's new television show, the host was in the middle of a rapid-fire rant and said under his breath and about college professors, "Weasels."

Curious, I decided to look into Beck's obviously rich college experience. I wondered: Did Beck, during his undergraduate and possibly graduate years, come to dislike certain professors he encountered along the way? Perhaps an advisor rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe he took that one bad class we all ran into. Could Beck have been the victim of an overzealous campus disciplinary system, which?

Well, any of these three things could have happened to Beck while studying theology at Yale. Or all three. One thing is for sure. If they did happen, they happened in a very, very short period of time. Because Beck, that professor-hating right-winger, was only around them for one semester. So where was he getting his hatred of academia?

From the horse's mouth, here's the relevant portion of Beck's official biography: "At the age of 30, Glenn lost his passion for radio - and everything else - as alcoholism and drug addiction took him over. Struggling to find some answers to his problem, Glenn pursued higher education. Though he was accepted by Yale as a Theology major, he lasted only one semester, faced with a divorce from his first wife and separation from his two daughters - the oldest with Cerebral Palsy. He was emotionally and financially decimated and relegated to one of the smallest radio markets. The shooting radio star had fallen to earth." Wow. Sounds like it.

So Beck, mired in addiction and faced with a crumbling private life, was only at Yale for one semester. But it must have been one hell of a semester, because Beck, like many conservatives, seems to have a hatred for higher education. A hatred that has manifested itself recently in such attention-grabbing right-wingers as David Horowitz, whose recent book is titled "The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America". On a smaller, yet equally harmful, scale, groups like Chris Flickinger's seek to fight what he considers a liberal bias on America's college campuses.

To right-wingers, "college eduction" means "liberal education". Why? Because, on the right, there's not only a distrust of knowledge, but there's also an unhealthy fear of it. As you know, fear is how the Republican Party operates. Without fear, without distrust, without panic, Americans would see right through the rather transparent Republican platform and realize that the party's agenda clearly isn't theirs. The more informed you are, the more likely you'll be able to separate fact from fiction. If your entire political ideology was steeped in fiction, wouldn't you run from a well-informed public?

It makes perfect sense for educational also-rans like Beck to dislike academia. Republicans often succeed by fostering a sense of "they think they're smarter than us" in their base. Without that distrust of education, how else could Republicans push such ludicrously incompetent ideas as intelligent design? And, as I said before, "If they can't control it, preach to it, hop it up on Ritalin or stick it in middle management, they always marginalize it. Happens every time. If they don't quite understand something - cultural diversity, homosexuality, science - they relegate it to the smelly, hacky-sack playing grassy field of the bizarre."

While we were busy watching reality television, we've missed a trend that corresponds quite well with the Republican ascendancy: That ignorance now trumps intelligence. Thanks to the Becks of the world, it's in style to be a complete moron. In fact, everywhere you turn, moronity is championed, while intelligence is given short shrift. A country that used to ask something from its citizens now asks us to be ourselves. We're more interested in having a beer with our presidents than trusting them to know what they're doing. Moreover, people like Beck encourage stupidity, because, if they didn't, no one would pay attention to them.

While opinion makers and those in power seek to keep Americans in the dark, it takes two to tango. Without a portion of the electorate unwilling to show any intellectual curiosity, Republicans wouldn't have a dance partner at the ballot box. Again, returning to something I wrote earlier, the thinking among many rank-and-file right-wingers goes like this: Why think for ourselves when our church or political party can do it for us? Why base things in reality when we can live our lives in a fantasy world populated by Godless baby killers, activist judges and walking, talking Terri Schiavos?

Thinking like that, coupled with a distrust of intelligence, has many Americans embracing idiocy. No one is happier to witness this public display of affection than the Republican Party. The longer the relationship lasts, the longer they'll stay in power. And the longer people like Beck pollute our airwaves, the harder we'll have to fight. But fight we will, because the truth is on our side. And if that makes me a weasel, so be it.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

1. Welcome, fellow weasel ...........

Take my paw, friend .............

[BobcatJH]

2. Do we weasels ...

... have a secret handshake?

[Mythsaje]

3. I think a lot of us had a few instructors who were a bit off...

I had the same one for Poetry and American Lit. She didn't recognize the word "wrought" in a poem I wrote.

Seriously.

My English 101 instructor was a known drunk, and graded based on his personal likes and dislikes. No matter how well you wrote a paper, you were best off choosing a topic he liked.

Some of these people ARE weasels. They want to hear their own ideas projected back at them, and woe to the student who disagrees.

But dealing with them is just part of the whole package. You learn to live with it or give up and rant about it years later on the radio, apparently.

[smoochpooch]

4. Great stuff, now how do we counter these attitudes?

Everybody, from evangelical neocons to moderate pro-choicers, know that Jr is as dumb as a post. But Rove did such a good job of lowering expectations for the man that people just don't care. They ignore the fact that he went to Yale too, just like the "stuffy", "elitist" Kerry. Schools that submit their potential faculty to an ideological litmus test test should be boycotted by faculty and students alike. They should be worried that a degree from those schools would become worthless in the minds of employers and colleagues, always mentioned with a roll of the eyes as "one of those schools". So many people constantly ignore their best interests when they vote for conservatives out of ignorance. Everyone thinks they're going to be rich someday. Guess what- probably not going to happen that often. As our country slowly declines, these people will continue to blame anyone but Rethugs, and probably even deny that our country is even declining. It is the one constant in the Republican party: change is bad, it is "them" who are causing all your problems.