Glenn Beck Bingo

So I've been asked to comment on the "Principles and Values" of television host Glenn Beck's "912 Project." OK.

Beck's "principles" are horrifically unprincipled, which is to say that they were created backwards. These are not the principles from which his political agenda emerges, these are post-facto rationalizations used to bolster a predetermined (but variable) political agenda. That accounts, I think, for the confusion and incoherence of these so-called principles.

The vastness of that confusion also means that addressing those nine items will take a bit more time. In order to engage them, we will have to make sense of them and that is not an easy prospect. We'll need to return to that list a bit later to muddle through it as much as one can.

For now, let's confine ourselves to Beck's 12 values. This list is less contradictory and corresponds better with reality, so it's much easier to engage.

I take it that by "values," Beck really means "virtues," as that is what his list includes. I prefer the latter term in that it connotes inherent, rather than attributed, worthiness, but let's not quibble over that. The virtues Beck lists may all be good ones:

Honesty, reverence, hope, thrift, humility, charity, sincerity, moderation, hard work, courage, personal responsibility, gratitude.

I say "may" be good because apart from context, several of these terms are elastic, contentless or open to perverse meanings. Reverence, gratitude and sincerity, for example, are meaningless without an indication of their respective objects. Some things ought to be revered and some things ought not to be. And sincerity, while generally preferable to insincerity, can be sincerely misguided.

Thrift is another value that is only sometimes a virtue, depending on context. It can serve greed or it can serve generosity; it can serve responsibility or irresponsibility.

Personal responsibility may be a virtue or it may be a cudgel used to beat the helpless, depending largely on whether the qualifier "personal" indicates particularity or exclusivity –  that is, whether the speaker intends to commend in this instance one particular form of responsibility or the speaker intends to assert that this is the only legitimate form of responsibility (the former is virtuous, the latter is vicious).

Charity may be the most ambiguous term in the list. Older English translations of 1 Corinthians 13 use "charity" for the Greek agape, and thus in the King James Version we read:

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

Charity meaning agape — unconditional love — is regarded by us Christians as the greatest of the virtues. As 1 Corinthians 13 concludes: "the greatest of these is charity." Seeing as charity is just kind of dumped unceremoniously into the middle of Beck's list, I'm going to guess that this sense of charity is not what he's referring to.

It seems likelier he's referring to the alternative contemporary use of charity to mean, roughly, almsgiving.

Almsgiving is certainly a virtue in its own right, but there still remains some ambiguity. For the Abrahamic religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam — almsgiving is both a privilege and a duty. It is a commandment, an obligation, and thus is not truly voluntary. This Judeo-Christian-Islamic sense of "charity" thus contrasts with and contradicts another contemporary American usage of the term, in which the word "charity" is meant to assert an exclusively voluntary act as contrasted with any obligation or duty. Charity, depending on who is speaking and in what context, can thus mean either the embrace or the denial of obligation.*

What's most striking about this list of 12 Values, however, is the frequency and intensity with which television personality Glenn Beck violates all of them, sometimes in turn, sometimes in combination, during his cable and radio broadcasts. You're likelier to see any of these virtues displayed and demonstrated in an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia than you are to see any of them on Glenn Beck's show.

Which brings us to the following: Glenn Beck Bingo.

Print out copies of the Glenn Beck Bingo card above and play along at home.

The rules are simple: Every time Beck violates any of his "values" by displaying its opposite, the first player to call him on it puts an "X" in the appropriate square.

When Beck is dishonest, misleading or mendacious, put an X in the square labeled "honesty."

When Beck is irreverent, mocking or demeaning that which is sacred, put an X in the square for "reverence."

When Beck savors and promotes despair, gleefully luxuriating in the ways in which he believes the world is going to Hell in a handbasket, put an X in the square for "hope."

When Beck tries to sell viewers something they don't need — something neither useful nor beautiful — put an X in the square for "thrift."

When Beck swaggers, is prideful or vain, or makes claims beyond his capacity to know or understand, put an X in the square for "humility."

When Beck is dismissive of those in need or offers reasons viewers shouldn't bother to assist them, put an X in the square for "charity."

When Beck is disingenuous, when his indignation is feigned or his outrage or tears are manufactured and rehearsed, put an X in the square for "sincerity."

When Beck is excessive or extreme or employs unqualified superlatives inappropriately, put an X in the square for "moderation."

When Beck is cowardly, backing down when confronted or lobbing pot-shots from the distance instead of face-to-face, or picking fights with those who don't have the media or financial resources to compete, put an X in the square for "courage."

When Beck refuses to accept personal responsibility or when he offers excuses for viewers so they don't have to — when he blames Them for every woe facing Us, demonizing the Other and pointing the finger at the scapegoats whom he says are solely responsible for the ills of the world — put an X in the square for "personal responsibility."

When Beck displays ingratitude, when he displays a sense of entitlement, insisting that his abundance and privilege are exclusively the result of merit, put an X in the square for "gratitude."

I've left "hard work" for last because, to his credit, Glenn Beck is not a lazy man. He does, however, habitually belittle the hard work of others, attributing their misfortune to a presumed laziness and disrespecting the calloused hands and broken backs of the poor. Whenever he does that, put an X in the square for "hard work."

The first player to get five X's in a row, vertically, horizontally or diagonally, wins.

NOTE: I incorporated a bit of color in the Glenn Beck Bingo card above, but you'll likely want to print these out in black and white. You could burn through a couple dozen of these in an

hour of Beck's show and those color ink cartr
idges are expensive.

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* The contemporary, Olaskian use of "charity" as an assertion of strictly voluntary almsgiving apart from all duty and obligation, coupled with the King James Version use of "charity" for agape — transcendent, unconditional love, allows us to state the following, impossible-seeming formula: "charity < justice < charity."

The apparent contradiction is only a matter of wordplay. The lesser "charity" has nothing at all to do with the greater. Nothing at all.