I caught part of a Glen beck episode mainly by accident. Now Beck, like Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly, and Rush Limbaugh are pundits. I do not care for pundits in general -- Certain ones in particular. Now you might ask why I dislike pundits, it's easy. They say little and mean less. They are pseudo-journalists without any accountability for their actions. There are no ethics for pundits, they are actors playing a role, and the role means a loud, obnoxious mouth saying anything in order to gather an audience and inflame them. One important thing to remember is that pundits are NOT journalists. There are no ethical considerations. they can be as rude and pretty well say anything they want and get away with it.
Glenn Beck is a prime example. He recently was 'discussing' the relationship of Government, Religion, Science, and Commerce from a historical perspective. Of course then he admits to not being a history teacher! Well he sure proved that without a doubt. But my main complaint is his tactics. Just before one break he drops a bomb and then does what pundits do and walked away. Here watch it for yourself and identify the bomb and then wait for the follow-up -- like me you would still be waiting. Glenn Beck Part II. Watch the next part as well and you still won't hear him support his accusations. Why? Because he's a pundit and he doesn't have to.
He discusses Abolitionists, Josiah Wedgewood, and then mentions that two generations later, Wedgewood's great-grandson, Charles Darwin, is the father of modern racism. Aside from the obvious issues with math (two generations is not a great-grandson) but he drops his bomb and then walks away. He takes a commercial break and when he comes back, he fails to support his words. He says it, and then fails to support it. Plainly put Glenn Beck is wrong in typical pundit style.
Aside from his whining, there is no truth to Darwin being a Racist. There is no truth to Racism, eugenics, or Nazi-ism being caused or started by Charles Darwin or his scientific theories. To make a statement like that and then walk away just shows you what pundits are -- nothing! They try to inflame, but never explain. They don't care if the majority of the people who might have heard it know better -- they only care with their core audience, the ones who are making them wealthy, pay attention and nod their little ditto-heads.
Need more? When someone is discriminating what are they doing? They are making a judgment. They have made a decision that someone else is less than they are. Whether they are talking race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, religion . . it's all about judging, making a decision. Whether you are talking to a loud-mouth bigot or an ethnic cleanser -- it's all about judgment -- a decision. Someone decides that one group is somehow superior to another and then act on it. It doesn't matter what their rationale is, it's still a human being passing judgment.
Now where in all of Charles Darwin's work does he say evolution involved making a judgment on the superiority of one group over another? Look hard because you will not find it! The Theory of Evolution, and particularly Darwin's contributions, do not factor in any form of human judgment. It's not there, it's not even implied. Beck-erhead isn't the first to make this argument, He, little kennie ham, and even smaller-minded david klinghoffer should get together and pat each others back. But they all make the same mistake. They are lying to us, one and all. Here is what a few others are saying as well.
Glenn Beck on Darwin, the Dispersal of Darwin Blog
Glenn Beck on Darwin and Racism, The Sensuous Curmudgeon Blog
Glenn Beck Wrong on Darwin, Michael Zimmerman, Huffington Post
Glenn Beck does live up to his role as a pundit. He says little and means less. He really doesn't give a damn what anyone else thinks as long as some people buy his books, watch him on TV and listen to him on the Radio. He has his fans, and I certainly am not numbered as one of them. It would be nice if he would get educated on a subject before ranting about it, but that is much to much to expect. Besides, he would lose his audience . . . and his income.
I'll leave you with two of the quotes of Darwin:
"As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all the members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to the men of all nations and races. If, indeed, such men are separated from him by great differences in appearance or habits, experience unfortunately shews (sic) us how long it is, before we look at them as our fellow creatures." The Descent of Man
"With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination. We build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly anyone is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil." On Origin of SpeciesRemember that last one is the one misused by bennie stein when he tried this same disreputable tactic in his mockumentary "Expelled: No intelligence Allowed" He strung together a few sentences from this complete quote to imply a very different message. Just another lie! I talked about Stein when I discussed Quote Mining. Beck finds himself in pretty poor company.
Posts
Glen Beck stated that Darwin was the FATHER of modren racism. His theories were used to justify the racism of others. Do we blame the father for the stupid children? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
ReplyDeleteRacism prior to Darwin was against other classes of people i.e. black, brown, white. That was true racism. After Darwin's theory people use it against groups of people. They could have been groups of people with all races. As is the poor. Carol Sanger is an example of this. If we limit the amount of poor through birth contol it will be better for all. The enviromental groups today are using it now. "The earth can not support all the people that are here now we need to get rid of some of them. But who should go? So how do we decide. It can't be us we are the best and the brightest, we know what is best for you. We need to see about the "weaker members of the world" ( yes Darwin use society a little license was needed)
Socialism is another example. This idea has been around along time but Marx took that idea a whole lot further. Hence USSR and and a few other places. It has fail everwhere it has been tried but they keep trying to show it can work. It didn't work in this place because it didn't have us the best and the brightest. Marx is the FATHER of Marxism and MODREN socialism because the best and the brightest used it for their stupidity.
So abolitionism led to racism? Makes sense. To Beck , anyway.
ReplyDeleteAnon -
Modern racism has it roots in the age old practice of dehumanizing the other. There are some good examples in the Bible. You only have to read some of the southern editorials prior to the Civil War justifying slavery. These ideas have nothing to do with Darwin.
The southern Ed. defended property rights. The slave being property the owner having the rights to said property. It came down to money.
ReplyDeleteDarwin theory, used by certain groups, made it so you could use it against groups or even the mixing of people. We have all heard the mongelizion of people. We can't have that it would weaken the race look at Darwin's Theory.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteSo someone used Darwin's work as an excuse for their own behavior. They used evolution as justification for their own actions.
To use a crude analogy, and one I don't particularly like, but it seems apt here -- when someone shoots another person, do you blame the shooter or the gun manufacturer? Actually if you blamed the person who explained how thermodynamics worked would be a better analogy because that is what Darwin did.
Evolutionary theory is an explanation of a naturally occurring phenomena, life and the diversity of life on this planet. The evidence that shows most species that existed on this planet have already gone extinct long before man's appearance. The incredibly geographical diversity that shows so many different organisms in one place and nothing like them in others. It is an explanation!
Do we blame Darwin for pointing it out to us? Of course not! He was answering questions that had been asked for centuries! If you want to blame 'Margaret' Sanger, then blame her. If you want to blame Adolf Hitler, blame him. Blaming the man whose work offered us the first actual view into how biology works and whose work has been mis-used as justification for atrocities in completely wrong. Do you think Sanger or Hitler needed Darwin? No! Eugenics, Ethnic Cleansing, or whatever you want to call it today has been around well before Darwin and had other excuses. How many atrocities have been done in the name of religion? People who act may look for excuses, but that is all they are. No one should have the right to euthanize or contraception-ize (is that a word?) without the consent of the individuals involved. Any government that grant anyone that right should be euthanized itself. Let's ask Milosivic? Oh wait, he was found guilty of War Crimes, wasn't he?
I recall a political cartoon from years ago. It was a simple picture of a rustic village in Europe. The balloon read something along the lines of "There, there Mrs. Beethoven. You really don't need another child. And besides at your age the child might be prone to deafness. Better never to get pregnant."
People, like Glenn Beck, who make these pronouncements are either lying through ignorance or they are deliberately lying to mislead people. I'll leave it up to you to consider why they would do such a thing. But the bottom line is you are being lied to. Why does Darwin's own work show that not only was he not a racist, but to use his work to support such activities would be criminal!
BTW, what the hell is Modern Racism? Nice turn of phrase that has absolutely no meaning. My wife tried to tell me it was racism based on some scientific idea. That's BS. Science does not have racist theories. There is nothing in science to identify one group as superior or inferior to another. The best science can do is catalog those differences. Can you identify an Irishman, African American, or Asian from a distance? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Science can tell you why, but that in no way implies one is superior to another. In my mind that requires a religion or a pundit.
Darwin was not the father of 'Modern' racism. He did not plant the seeds that caused slavery and discrimination. He told a story about the nature of the world around us. He gave us tools to understand. It's up to us in how we use them.
People all though history have used other people works to justify what they doing.
ReplyDeleteOne of the problems now (IMHO) is that the word racisim has change.
It is more of over all label.
You don't agree with me, you must be a racist or a bigot or fill in the blank (wife husband).
Anon,
ReplyDeleteI don't think the word racism has changed. What you are describing is a lack of tolerance and understanding that seems to become more prevalent as we let ourselves get more and more polarized. No one seems to be willing to accept other points of view and your example is one response to it. We see it in our politicians, we see it in the media, we see it in our churches.
Back to my original post, Glenn Beck, and his ilk, prey on that polarization, they use it to further inflame us. To drive wedges between individuals and use it for their own benefit. He bears no responsibility, but he certainly benefits from it.