rg21 - 15 August 2010 05:01 AM

Are we going to get back to skepticism, science, reason, paranormal claims, and quackery some time soon? Political liberalism has highjacked the skeptical movement and, like a virus, is prostituting it for its own propagational ends like it does every institution it infects.
  I hear Beck on average under five minutes a week, but I don’t need to hear him in order to notice that on this episode of Point of Inquiry there is not one example of his alleged irrationality or nonsense, just name calling, ad hominem attacks, and self adulating liberal breast beating..
  I have attended TEA Parties and you bet people are angry. They have plenty to be angry about. But liberalism has no tolerance for dissent and is ever so puzzled and hurt when the “great unwashed” they despise, bully, and manipulate resent or resist their impositions.
  Speaking of logic, I have noticed one thing about Rush Limbaugh and it may be true of Beck also, they have a wonderful instinctive grasp of the way inverse, converse, and contrapositive can be applied to expose vast panoramas of liberal hypocrisy and illogic. I’m sure that’s not appreciated on the left.

I just created an account so I could make just this point. This episode had no examples to support the arguments, and as a new listener to Point of Inquiry, the base name-calling made me want to stop listening alltogether.

H-Bomb

Thanks for offering your salient point re rg21’s statements lacking examples which could be debated. But he is just one voice among many. The beauty of CFI is that there is a free flowing debate on various issues which affect us all.

rg21 is right on one point, people are angry. But he is wrong that this anger is caused by liberals, it is caused by the likes of Beck and Limbaugh, who identify problems and then “blame” it on liberals, not on those greedy capitalists (which they represent) who are the cause for this growing social inequality . They are masters in creating straw man arguments. This is what makes them so dangerous.
Liberals just respond with anger to the false and insidious charges (with psychologically charged pictures and words in the background).

A couple of quotes I find relevant in the case of Beck:

“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation or creed.”

“The Opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.”

Both by Bertrand Russell

Just saw this article on HuffPo by Dana Milbank:

“Mormon Prophecy Behind Glenn Beck’s Message”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/post_996_b_749750.html

Pragmatic Naturalist - 05 October 2010 07:52 PM

A couple of quotes I find relevant in the case of Beck:

“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation or creed.”

“The Opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.”

Both by Bertrand Russell

The masses are led by the passion of their leaders.

Pragmatic Naturalist - 06 October 2010 09:08 AM

Just saw this article on HuffPo by Dana Milbank:

“Mormon Prophecy Behind Glenn Beck’s Message”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dana-milbank/post_996_b_749750.html

In politics, it doesn’t matter how you get support, only that you get support.

Religion is a easy vehicle by which to gather support. As long as individuals identify themselves as members of a particular group they are much easier to manipulate.

Gnostikosis - 06 October 2010 10:51 AM

In politics, it doesn’t matter how you get support, only that you get support.

But shouldn’t it matter?

But shouldn’t it matter?

Yes.  But it doesn’t.

Pragmatic Naturalist - 06 October 2010 12:19 PM

But shouldn’t it matter?

You want a “Yes”? Sure, however the world isn’t what it ought to be. You got to deal with what is.

Crowd psychology wins the day. Theoretically the crowd mind thinks differently than the individual. Someone like Beck may have mastered crowd mentality.

So i’m thinking that if one is trying to approach this like they are dealing with a “large” group of individuals, they might end up with the wrong answers. At least if that person had any intent to accomplish something practical.

I think Beck has done less to master crowd mentality than he has to master manipulating people’s emotions.  He’s good at it.  Real good.  He is good at getting people worked up about what pisses them off without really saying anything or giving any solutions.  I actually think that’s why Republicans tend to beat Democrats.  They’re simply better at manipulating people.  And they have a backbone.  That too.

I was about to write an article to be titled “Common Nonsense: The Emperor’s New Clothes and the Failure of Civilization in Indonesia” (for an Indonesian newspaper).  I hope the similarity with Mr. Zaitchik’s does not make anyone think that I plagiarize: it’s been in my mind for sometime and I had even thought its my unique coinage.