Yesterday I wrote a post disparaging W. Cleon Skousen and his book "The 5,000 Year Leap," which changed Glenn Beck's life, and which Beck has been praising to the skies. The late Skousen had a reputation as a far-right weirdo and anti-communist conspiracy theorist. I bought a copy of "Leap" on the way home from work yesterday, to see exactly what it says. I read most of it last night, and skimmed through to the end.
Skousen must have developed his unsavory reputation from his other books, because none of his is in "Leap." If all you knew about Skousen was "Leap," you would be completely oblivious to the bad stuff about him. "Leap" is a work of interpretive history, one that treats the American founding as a "miracle," and renders the Founders as having an air of semi-divinity about them. In its worshipful tone and substance, it blurs the line between religion and nationalism -- not in a frightening way, but rather in a hokey, 1950s civic-religion way. This is the kind of book you'd expect Opie's civics teacher in Mayberry to assign to him. It's an eccentric book to be sure, and a poorly written, poorly argued and sentimental one. It is, I mean to say, a bad book, but it's not an evil book or a crazy book. The idea that America is charged by God with a manifest destiny, and is an exception among the nations of the world, is a deeply problematic idea, to say the least, but it is (alas) one well within the historical mainstream f this country. Skousen himself may have been an extremist in his convictions, but you have to look to his other material for evidence of that; it's not in "The 5,000 Year Leap," and I want to make that clear after yesterday's post, which I mean to correct.
That said, as I was going through "Leap" last night, I kept thinking, "How in the world did this thing set Glenn Beck's mind on fire?" It's not that Skousen or anybody else is wrong in the least to be filled with admiration for the Founders and their achievements, but that this is such a mediocre work of starchy pseudo-history you can't believe somebody in his position would take it so seriously. Yesterday, having read about Skousen's mindset, I was alarmed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be recommending "Leap" as a guide to understanding the times. I feel differently this morning. It's sort of embarrassing that the governor takes guidance from this unsophisticated tome, but it's not all that alarming or unusual, as its take on the meaning of American history would almost certainly make emotional sense to patriotic people in small towns all across Texas -- where the governor's base is.
Skousen must have developed his unsavory reputation from his other books, because none of his is in "Leap." If all you knew about Skousen was "Leap," you would be completely oblivious to the bad stuff about him. "Leap" is a work of interpretive history, one that treats the American founding as a "miracle," and renders the Founders as having an air of semi-divinity about them. In its worshipful tone and substance, it blurs the line between religion and nationalism -- not in a frightening way, but rather in a hokey, 1950s civic-religion way. This is the kind of book you'd expect Opie's civics teacher in Mayberry to assign to him. It's an eccentric book to be sure, and a poorly written, poorly argued and sentimental one. It is, I mean to say, a bad book, but it's not an evil book or a crazy book. The idea that America is charged by God with a manifest destiny, and is an exception among the nations of the world, is a deeply problematic idea, to say the least, but it is (alas) one well within the historical mainstream f this country. Skousen himself may have been an extremist in his convictions, but you have to look to his other material for evidence of that; it's not in "The 5,000 Year Leap," and I want to make that clear after yesterday's post, which I mean to correct.
That said, as I was going through "Leap" last night, I kept thinking, "How in the world did this thing set Glenn Beck's mind on fire?" It's not that Skousen or anybody else is wrong in the least to be filled with admiration for the Founders and their achievements, but that this is such a mediocre work of starchy pseudo-history you can't believe somebody in his position would take it so seriously. Yesterday, having read about Skousen's mindset, I was alarmed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be recommending "Leap" as a guide to understanding the times. I feel differently this morning. It's sort of embarrassing that the governor takes guidance from this unsophisticated tome, but it's not all that alarming or unusual, as its take on the meaning of American history would almost certainly make emotional sense to patriotic people in small towns all across Texas -- where the governor's base is.
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