On one of the most frustrating but
fundamental reasons why we’re here.
As much as it pains me to do so, I
have to focus here largely on Glenn Beck, and particularly on his Beck
University. I’ll be damned if I’m going to provide a hyperlink to Glenn Beck’s
online, not-for-credit but definitely for-profit (for him) university, so
you’ll either have to trust my basic description here or to find the website on
your own (no AmericanStudier lifeguard will be on duty, so swim at your own
risk, there be monsters). In July 2010 Beck founded this online university,
which (for a fee) offers weekly “courses” in topics such as Faith, Hope, and
Charity. Despite those broad themes, the courses have focused very specifically
on American history and identity (particularly in but not limited to the
founding era), and Beck has brought in a series of “scholars” (pardon my air
quotes, but I can’t write the word with a straight face) to provide seemingly
objective (but most definitely partisan in every sense) perspectives on those
national topics. The most famous and certainly most telling of those scholars
is David
Barton (he teaches the Faith courses), an Evangelical minister who has made
his career with a
series of books arguing that the Founding Fathers not only did not believe
in the separation of church and state, but in fact intended for the United
States (and its Constitution, government, and so on) to be deeply and centrally
Christian. (Not coincidentally, the Latin motto on Beck U’s coat of arms
translates to “Revolution against tyrants, submission to God.”)
For a long time, I had felt as if
scholarly perspectives on America (and its history, identity, community, etc)
were largely distinct from contemporary political debates; certainly talk radio
and Fox News types have long articulated certain visions of those national
topics, but it didn’t seem to me as if their goal was to teach their audiences
about those topics so much as reinforce existing ideas in service of much more
overtly political agendas. But from its name to every aspect of its existence,
Beck University does purport to teach, and by at least one measure it seems
that he has been perceived as doing exactly that: in a pretty
comprehensive April 2010 poll of self-affiliated Tea Party members, over
50% of those polled identified Beck as the person from whom they have “learned
the most about America.” And while deciding between which of Beck’s nonsensical
fairy tales and conspiracy theories is the most dangerous or destructive is a
very tall order, I would argue that it is precisely the ones within this
University frame, the ones that Beck and his cohorts define as the most
scholarly, the most objective, the most grounded in historical facts and
details, that have the greatest potential to do long-term harm. If his audience
believes (for example) that FEMA is building concentration camps in which to
quarantine conservatives, they will, it seems to me, have to recognize at a
certain point that they have not been taken to such camps, nor has anyone else.
But if they believe (for example) that the Constitution was created and
intended to enshrine Christianity at the core of America’s national identity
and government and community—and, more exactly, believe that Beck and his
scholars have taught them the historical and factual and inarguable groundings
for that idea—then no contemporary trends or events could revise that
perspective.
Perhaps nothing can; certainly the
thought that I might have any ability to counter Beck University is, I know, an
extreme and far from humble one. But I have increasingly come to feel as if I
have to try, as if part of my life’s work should be working to articulate
narratives and analyses of American histories and identities that can, in their
own small way, become part—and, I hope, a more complex and accurate part than
those of Beck and his ilk—of our larger conversations about these core and
crucial topics. But I can’t do that alone, of course. Ideally it requires many
of us to do the same, so that the diversity and depth of scholarly perspectives
can contribute to those conversations (see the Scholarly Reviews category for
many of the other voices I’ve tried to highlight here). And more immediately
and practically, it requires an engaged and active audience, requires you—not
only to read, but to respond, to help create conversations here that can both
model the best such national dialogues and carry these ideas and analyses and
stories forward. So thanks, for the first two years and I hope for many more to
come. Next post tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you think? Thoughts on
public scholarship, national conversations, blogging, or any other related issues
for the weekend’s post?
11/12 Memory Day nominees: A tie between two very different but equally
impressive and inspiring,
and I would argue equally American, women, Sor Juana
Inés de la Cruz and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton.
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