CelticBear’s Musings

Oh poor poor Glenn Beck says he “can’t get a break.”
Article: Beck on being a white Christian who “loves America”: “I just can’t win”
Poor, sad, wealthy and successful Glenn Beck who has his own radio show and TV show and is a member of the privileged class. He’s such a victim and so disenfranchised. Poor Glenn Beck who is a member of the group of people who run the country, control most of the world economy, and is in charge of the militaries.

This culture of self-victimization among the privileged is disgusting. From Glenn Beck and his WASP male bastion to the Christians who decry that they’re being persecuted and their religion is going to be made illegal any day now even while the majority of law makers are Christian, there are as many churches as there are gas stations, nearly every store I walk in from grocery stores to convenience stores sell religious items, and despite the admonition against it in the Constitution you pretty much have to pass an implied test of religiosity before you can be elected to public office in this country.

Back at the IAFA there was a panel I attended where one of the panelists discussed the concept of “writing up the pyramid.” Culture is like a pyramid, where at the top of the pyramid, at the point, is the most privileged class–which happens to be white, heterosexual, Christian males. And everyone else falls down on the pyramid somewhere. White, hetero’, Christian females would probably be next on down, and near the bottom would probably be something like a lesbian, Hispanic, atheist woman with a physical deformity.

Now, literarily speaking, people can write “up the pyramid.” That is, a minority or disenfranchised group can write about and in the voice of the groups above them but it’s nearly impossible for people of higher privilege to be able to write through the experience of those below them. Women have to exist as a woman in a man’s world, men don’t have to live in womens’ worlds. Blacks have to live in black culture and a white privileged world, whites don’t understand the “black experience,” etc. This concept is quite true (generally speaking) in the field of writing, and it’s very true in just reality. The truth is white, Christian males are the privileged class and it’s incredibly insulting and just plain ridiculous to have someone of that class to presume they’re some kind of social victim. It’s arrogant, ignorant, and asinine.