Below is the beginning 10 minutes of this feature. He spends the first 8 minutes explaining his reasoning for the show, but it gets really interesting at about 8:50 when he begins to list of the top 3 concerns of the mothers in his audience.
Shortly after a mother in the audience begins talking about how "America" is being torn apart, Beck says:
"So who's tearing us apart, because they'll say that it's -- on the floor of the Senate they actually said my name in a debate, and they said that all of this being caused by me and people like me. I'm like, 'They know who I am, and they hate me. I feel so good inside.'"
And for this comment, he receives applause.
Glenn Beck is being acknowledged as tearing America apart, and he is happy.
I happened to turn on my television to this program the day that it was originally aired, and I actually watched most of it. I am always intrigued by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the prime time Fox News punditry cast, but I am also so frustrated. Not until this program did I realize why.
Glenn Beck understands that he is generally a hated person by the Left, or at least by those on the "floor of the Senate," as he said. He acknowledges this on his show often. Yet, people still watch him, believe in him and applaud him when he says things like the aforementioned. Why?
Two reasons.
1) Glenn Beck participates in Dead-Level Abstraction.
Dead-level abstraction means a speaker or transmitter of a message becomes stuck at one-level of abstraction, either high or low (high meaning very abstract, low meaning very specific). Beck operates at the high end, meaning when he speaks about issues in the nation or why he is upset with things, he speaks very generally or abstractly.
He does this because when you use a term like "America," "regular people," or "freedom," many images and beliefs can come to mind, and they typically bring about large swells of emotion. He can control his audience's emotion by using general terms that don't really mean much to begin with.
For instance, on this very program, Beck poses a question to his audience of mothers.
Audience member: "We need to stop apologizing for freedom."
Beck: "Do we have freedom now?"
General audience: "No."
Another audience member: "No, we have relative freedom."
Beck: "Do we have freedom now?"
General audience: "No."
Another audience member: "No, we have relative freedom."
Now, when Beck poses the question "Do we have freedom now?" One has to step away from the emotional and patriotic attachment to the word "freedom" and ask oneself "What is he really asking?"
Freedom means a lot of things to a lot of people. It could mean the freedom to believe this
or the freedom to do this
or the freedom to enjoy two fire-grilled hamburger patties between two toasted sesame seed buns with pickles, onions, ketchup and mayo
And when the audience member replies "We have relative freedom," what does that even mean? Isn't everything relative?
I could look outside my window and decide "Hmm, it's sunny out," and my friend could say, "Well, I'd say it's relatively sunny." And then we'd both realize we just wasted 35 seconds of our lives deciding how exactly sunny it is outside.
Relative freedom? Move to North Korea and enjoy their relative enslavement and general unhappiness.
Next time Beck uses a term like "health care," listen to the words he uses around it. Does he describe specific parts of "health care," such as exact costs and timelines? No. He prefers to remain as abstract as possible because saying "health care" invokes imagery of town hall eruptions, socialism, communism, Nazism (apparently), losing one's freedom, and killing grandma.
2) Glenn Beck puts a face on issues and, through Dead Level Abstraction, makes emotional arguments out of political and scientific issues.
This point ties into the first, but more specifically, Beck uses his emotions to incur the emotions of audience members. He takes his level of punditry to ringleadership. He'd rather steer the reins of emotion in his audience, then provide legitimate, grounded proof for a majority of his arguments.
A typical way Beck does this is by mock-crying or whining for a few seconds to mock a dissenting point, as seen in this promotional picture. Apparently, Beck thinks it's humorous to fake a tear at a dissenting opinion rather than ward it off with a logical explanation or defense.
Or, as he does in this clip, he completely unhinges from the rational world.
Viewers are made to think that winning a shouting match is greater than discussing issues and finding an agreeable way to debate. And instead of defending his position, or defending his right to unhinge, he simply says that Americans lack "common sense," a clever plug of his new book.
He says that he continually talks about issues on his show, but in this particular instance refers to them only as "the bailout" and the issue of how are we spending "all this money." The "bailout" refers to the economic bailout, in which a multitude of money is being spent on a large amount of things. What about "the bailout" would Beck like to discuss? Apparently, he would like to talk about how the government is spending "all this money."
My point is. Spending "all this money," which makes it sound like a lot of money (which it is) sounds worse than when you get down to specifics and say what the money is being allocated towards.
Beck refuses to discuss the issues at a specific level, and instead, would rather humor an audience of ambiguous "mothers." These "concerned moms" would apparently love to talk about the big issues, but all they end up doing is becoming a part of the Beck charade.
The two videos above are only two of the very few. To provide more evidence would take an entire webpage. Watch his show, and dissect his ambiguity and abstraction. The entire special "A Mother's Challenge" can be found on YouTube in several parts.
