Intercultural Blind Spot: Glenn Beck's German Fans

This is a post about an intercultural blind spot. An IBS exists whenever people who are interested in another culture -- but not extremely well-versed in it -- develop a distorted view of the other culture based on the lack of contextual knowledge (and the hubris not to recognize that lack). This can take many forms:

• You take the spokesman from another culture seriously because (1) you are unable to detect the tells that alert a homegrown listener to the fact that this person is stupid or nuts; and/or (2) you are unaware of that person's history which shows them to be nuts even though what you heard sounded fairly reasonable.
• You assume that one of the spokesmen for the other culture whose work is easily accessible because he speaks your language 'represents' the other culture as a whole, rather than just a tiny, unrepresentative fraction of it (example for English-speakers: Peter Schneider).
• You take a spokesman from the other culture too seriously because he or she is saying what you want to hear and/or confirming reassuring stereotypes (example for German speakers: Michael Moore).
• You assume the spokesman from the other culture must be as popular and influential at home as he is in your country.

Doing some unrelated research, I came across the website Politically Incorrect, which subtitles itself as: 'News against the Mainstream - Pro-American - Pro-Israeli - Against the Islamization of Europe - For the Constitution and Human Rights'. It's a curious mixture -- some of the posts are the sort of heavy-handed sarcasm and name-calling you see on the more tiresomely ranty kinds of political websites. Other posts make halfway-defensible points, and yet others take fairly well-aimed potshots at the indubitably politically-correct German state-run media.

Just when I was tempted to think some of it might be worth taking seriously, though, I ran across this entry (my translation):

After the attacks of 11 September 2001, a document called 'The Project' was discovered during a raid in Switzerland. The information, which has been kept secret by the US Administration, reveal the largest terrorism-financing scheme in US history. This documentary film relentlessly uncovers how the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the US Administration in an attempt to destroy the West from inside.

The film will be shown on Glenn Beck's The Blaze...

Whoa, wait a minute -- Glenn Beck? Katy, bar the door! For those of you lucky enough not to know who he is, Glenn Beck is a tear-prone, soddenly über-patriotic, half-educated conspiracy monger (and former cocaine user and radio shock jock) who had a batshit-crazy show on Fox News in the United States, before even Fox News dumped him. After Fox fired him, he dropped off the radar screen, and all sane Americans breathed a sigh of relief -- except for the late-night comedians, who mourned the passing of the most ludicrously sinister and sinisterly ludicrous media figure since Father Coughlin. He now runs his own media empire, spinning out inane tales for the tinfoil-hat brigade.

Host nation, allow me to proclaim: Glenn Beck is a 24-carat, no-holds barred moron. It's hard to think of a German who occupies an analogous space in the cultural landscape, but perhaps Horst Mahler (g) comes closest, even though Horst Mahler is a million times smarter (and more malevolent) than Glenn Beck. Nevertheless, you get the point. If I were to mention to a German friend: 'You know, I was reading an article by Horst Mahler the other day, and he made some really good points!' there would be a spit-take and howls of laughter. That is also what you will get for taking Glenn Beck seriously.

Comments

[Cicero Ril]

They fired Glenn Beck? Does this mean there's amethod to their madness???

[Till]

@ano nym - no offence taken, I understood what you meant, and anyway, as a capital markets lawyer, I've been called worse :-)

What I'm saying is basically that PI are jerks, but they're not the only jerks. In particular, while they may claim inherent inferiority of muslim people (I'm going to trust you there, since I'm not going to read that site again), other site imply the inherent inferiority of certain groups.

But, yeah, I don't have strong feelings either way.

[noribori]

What is interesting about conspiracy theories is that often the pure facts are true and people are very proud about that. But that's not the point – it's all about how the facts are deliberately combined into alarmingly mind-bending theories of everything. It's a mind-set in which everything is connected with everything, and those who believe in 9-11 conspiracies often believe in other conspiracies too, prepare themselves for the big collapse with weapons and food storage and buy gold as much as they can afford. Therefore it is very appropriate that Glenn Beck not only is a master of lunatic conspiracy theories but also made a fortune in selling gold ads.

If you think this is a pretty good conspiracy theory itself then let me point out to you that I don't get that Bart Simpson allusion and how it is related to Glenn Beck. Is Bart trying to protect himself from radiation? I know an IBS when I run into one.

[anon nym]

I should add that I'm not accusing Till of being a racist; I talked about opinion for awhile and there was a switch from tills posted opinion to the opinion voiced by PI - see if you can find it :)

[Anon Nym]

Sidenote: my name and email are obviously fake. I hope this won't matter in this discussion.

Till, I have to respectfully disagree. The problem is that you give a valid opinion when you say it is an opinion site, and by nature they will selectively report - and that this is all that there is to it.

It is a valid opinion *per se*, but not when applied to the real world example of PI. I have a hard time putting it into words, but the core is intent I guess. There comes a point when an opinion isn't worth as much as another one, despite the general/philosophical rule that they are equal, and PI has passed that point somewhere for sure.

Yes, EVERYBODY suffers from confirmation bias etc. But there are those who take part in public debate and those who just figured out who to call someone a nigger with socially acceptable vocabulary.

Yes, PI is on some level very much like the Tea Party/Birthers/Glenn Becks overseas. Both camps, by their nature, attract people who, when faced with trouble defending their position by frankly *any* standard, simply fall back to the position "It's my *opinion*, and it is just as valid as yours. If it isn't, you basically tell me I'm not fully human - and where you not just complaining that *I* was doing that?"

The thing is, with our human faculties that let us analyze situations and arrive at *nearly* objective conclusions (consensual reality etc), comes a responsibility to use *all* of those faculties. You can't willfully ignore things and expect your opinion to be worth the same as that of other people who try to open their eyes as wide as humanly possible.

So if you are on a site where people routinely talk about the inherent (!) inferiority of some other group, use very closely selected examples to confirm their axioms and ignore everything else while then extrapolating from all that the 'multi-culti worshipping sheep' need a harsh lesson etc...

...then no. Your "opinion" is not worth the same as mine. You are nothing but a old school racist jumping the current muslim fear train while avoiding WW2 buzzwords, and you *will* be treated as such.

And that is what PI is, nothing more.

[Till]

I sort of disagree about that neonazi / racism thing (caveat: haven't read the site for a few years due to simian nature of commentators, see below).
Insofar as PI reported on facts, they were correct. If reporting correct facts makes you a neonazis, do arrest me.
Yeah, they reported only selected facts, crimes by immigrants mainly. But selecting what you report is what opinion sites do. Indymedia reports on attacks by neonazis, not by immigrants, PI does the reverse. Udo Vetter's lawblog reports on police violence on immigrants, PI does the reverse.
There's enough left leaning blogs that consider Germans per se to be fascist, PI considers Muslims per se to be primitive.
So, yeah, while I am not a fan, if you call PI neonazis, be prepared to extend that name to a lot of other people.

[Roger]

Hey, if you think about taking PI seriously, why not Horst Mahler or may be a Glenn Beck?
I don't see the great difference, it fits quite well.
So what about intercultural bilnd spot?

[Anon Nymus]

PI is a site where neo nazis have figured out that if they are superfriendly to Israel, they resist easy stereotyping and can pretty much say what they want.

So your regular commentator/author there will praise Israel and proclaim to need to help them in any way, then go on to explain that those nigh sub-human towelheads and other darkies are just simply trying to destroy us all. How muslim are "required" by their religion to lie to, subvert and destroy us hapless christian-influenced proud white men... They will sneeringly use euphemisms for 'foreigner' like 'Kulturberreicherer' (roughly 'cultural enrichments') - make no mistake, those people are basically only saying 'basketball talents' instead if 'niggers'.

They are the lowest of the low on the german net.

[Cuneiform]

If I were to mention to a German friend: 'You know, I was reading an article by Horst Mahler the other day, and he made some really good points!' there would be a spit-take and howls of laughter. That is also what you will get for taking Glenn Beck seriously.
The last sentence is not true. You can get a book by Glenn Beck at the Walmart, so there must be people who take him seriously.

[FabMax]

@Till: It's not only the comments. The author that goes by the name of "kewill" is one of the nastiest, foul-mouthed a**holes I've ever come across.

Also, the author Michael Stürzenberger has written a manifest (that sounds somehow familiar, doesn't it?) in which he advocates violence to "defend" Europe from "Islamisation".

PI is an aggregator for racist, that's the long and short of it.

[Till]

Ah. Well. Politically incorrect. Yes.
I read the articles on that site for a few years, back when it started out, for the simple reason that it reported on topics which the "mainstream media" didn't (for what it's worth - I also read left-leaning sites for the same reason and I know that using the expression "mainstream media" makes one sound like an utter moron).

I kicked PI out of my blogroll after becoming disgusted with the comments. Yes, the site itself may be right sometimes. But the comments are on a Glenn-Beck-times-youtube-comment-section, faeces-throwing, putty-eating level of such sheer inanity that I become physically unable to visit the site.

Long story cut short - assume that the people who visit the site are widely as insane as Glenn Beck. Therefore, the reference makes sense.