By Selwyn Duke
If an argument falls in a forest of confusion and nobody
hears it, does it make an impact?
In a segment with Megyn Kelly on the Wednesday edition of
the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly lamented
how traditionalists don’t have a “compelling argument” on the faux-marriage
issue and that all we can do is “thump the Bible.” But if theistic thumping is
all O’Reilly hears, he needs an ear for something other than the mainstream
media.
O’Reilly’s assertion is, frankly, insulting. Many of us in
the Brainstream Media have for
years been propounding deep, intellectual, and sometimes novel arguments in
defense of marriage. And they’re certainly compelling, yet it is true that they
don’t compel. And how could they?
Virtually no one hears them because society’s primary
conduits of information — the mainstream media, academia, and popular culture —
are all controlled by the left.
The reality is that the above members of the Triumvirate of
Evil are like the sentient programs in The
Matrix: they guard all the gates and hold all the keys. If they don’t want
your message to get out, it won’t. They can make you famous or infamous or keep
you anonymous; they can cast angels as demons, truth as lies, and virtue as
vice. And they do.
So is it fair to fault traditionalists for not being able to
put compelling arguments in the public arena? It’s a bit like putting the onus
on the Jews for not having been able to control the narrative used against them
in Nazi Germany.
In fact, if anyone would imply that the right has been outshined
by the left in intellectual heft, he has it exactly backwards. The right has
actually been doing very little Bible thumping, while the left has been doing
almost nothing but equality thumping. And this is the left’s advantage.
The person who offers reasoned, intellectual arguments
always has an uphill battle against the demagogue, which is why man’s history
is one of mainly bad men, not good ones, rising to power. The demagogue is
selling vice — in the form of playing on people’s prejudices, envy,
covetousness, etc. — whereas the wise leader is stuck peddling that unpopular
product called virtue. And, to paraphrase Confucius, “I never met anyone who
loved virtue as much as sex” (which could be why no one worries about his
adolescent son getting hooked on theology sites).
As for marriage, it doesn’t take much synopsizing to
characterize the left’s arguments as “Marriage Equality!” and “Equal Rights!” —
with heavy, heavy emphasis on the exclamation points. And it works like a
charm. As Adolf Hitler pointed out in Mein
Kampf, the common man has a very short memory, so political success
requires the use and continual repetition of brief, catchy slogans. Hey, it’s
why we hear “Coke is It!” and “Just do it” as opposed to long expositions on
the delights of drinking cola or wearing $120 sneakers. It is the technique of
effective advertising — and the Way of the Demagogue.
Getting back to O’Reilly, an irony here is that he’s part of
the problem. When has he ever had on his show a guest who has put forth those
compelling arguments “that don’t exist”? He certainly has found time for fonts
of intellectualism such as Marc Lamont Hill, retreads such as Bob Beckel, and a
regular “Culture Warriors” segment with news-version Barbie dolls (CNN’s
Margaret Hoover was a culture warriorette until recently). Oh, as to the last
thing, I know that pretty faces sell in this superficial age of the image. But
it’s a little ridiculous to complain about the alleged lack of traditionalist
intellectualism when you’re ignoring traditionalist intellectuals in favor of
something far closer to Idiocracy’s Hot
Naked Chicks & World Report.
So I have some advice for O’Reilly. It you want find a
compelling argument on an issue, don’t go to someone who is the leader of an
organization devoted to that issue, or who simply has a relevant Ph.D., but who
has never penned anything but boilerplate. Go to a person who has actually written something compelling —
which, by the way, is just a mouse click in the right direction away. It’s not
rocket science.
Anyway, the mainstream media will continue to act as if the
Brainstream Media doesn’t exist, because what cannot be refuted must be
ignored. But the fact is that we’re here doing the job un-Americans won’t do.
And you ought to know that, Mr. O’Reilly. Heck, forget Killing Lincoln and Killing
Kennedy, your next big book could be Killing
Our Culture.
Contact
Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter
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