Brother Ben's Traveling Salvation Show
Category: Local... MSM/Journalism/etc... Politics... Thinking Allowed...
Posted Saturday, September 24, 2005 at 04:28 PM [GMT-6]

Because of the veritable groundswell of demand (OK...two people, but that's a significant percentage of my regular readership), I'm going to complete the post that I began yesterday morning. It's better that I took a little time to think about it anyway. I've got a different perspective now than I did right after the event.

We attended Ben Stein's lecture Thursday night at Midland College, courtesy of the Davidson Distinguished Lecture Series. For those readers not in Midland, this program invites generally well-known speakers and provides free admission to the public.

You can read Stein's creds on his website if you're not already familiar with him. Given his success in a wide range of endeavors, labeling him a "Renaissance Man" is probably not hyperbole, at least with respect to the breadth of his intellectual achievements. But whatever it was that Ben once staked his claim to fame on, he's nowadays first and foremost an entertainer. Sure, he's got a background in law and economics and was a presidential speech-writer and was active in the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s, and his conservative take on most* things political and economic give him a broad and enthusiastic base of support from those on the right of center...like, say, the typical audience in Midland, Texas.

What he provides is an entertaining and often humorous monologue, filled with easily digested sound bites and a lot of "motherhood and apple pie" homilies that we've heard many times before. I suppose that it's encouraging to hear such things from someone who rubs shoulders with the "elite" in Hollywood and Malibu (he and Babs apparently do their grocery shopping in the same store), but I can't help wondering if and why those things have any more relevance when coming from his lips than from the pulpits and coffee shops and cafés and living rooms all around our city and our part of the country. Really, the adage about preaching to the saved was never more appropriate than Thursday night.

Stein does know how to hook an audience. In our case, he began by referring to Midland as "the last refuge of the sane American" and the place "where I'm moving when I retire." Responding to the warnings he was given about Midland being a treeless landscape, he said "people are the trees; they give you shade and shelter."

I'm sure he was suitably impressed by the pre-lecture reception in his honor at The Racquet Club, a lovely venue that I suspect 90% of Midlanders have never set foot inside. And I'm sure he was gratified by the applause that frequently interrupted his talk, in response to comments like...

• Poverty does not yield to paternalism; it yields to free market capitalism and democracy.
• If the people who run the New York Times could see the peace of mind on your faces, it would drive them insane.
• Major media and Hollywood are having a negative effect on our determination to defeat the enemy that wants to destroy America.
• The US military can't save America by itself. Someone more than likely died for us today in Iraq or Afghanistan. What did we do today to deserve that honor?
• Tony Blair says that the simple measure of a country is by counting how many people want in, and how many want out. As far as I can tell, the only people who want out of America are Barbra Streisand and Alec Baldwin. I've offered to help Barbra move, but so far, she's ignored me.
• After Katrina, the media rioted...in it's hatred for Bush.

He paid a well-deserved tribute to those serving in America's military, to the "first responders," to school teachers, to Laura Bush and to her mom (who was in the audience). He contrasted the heroism of various well-known actors in WWII to the noticeable absence of similar stories today.

He devoted a few minutes to describing the dangers and life-threatening situations faced by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. His remarks were made uncomfortable by the fact that we were sitting next to a friend whose son was shipping out to Iraq -- and, specifically, to Baghdad -- as a combat soldier the very next morning.

Stein left us with the simple admonition that we should and could find meaning in life by doing things for other people. At the end, he got a standing ovation.

But, a couple of days after the event, I can't help wondering...what did we learn? What was accomplished? I guess I was hoping for more...more facts, more analogies, more historical perspective...to help us create a better and more satisfying context within which to view current events and economic trends. Perhaps he feels the need to "dumb down" his remarks for general audiences such as this. Or, perhaps, Ben Stein is just another actor -- albeit much better educated and informed than 99% of his fellows -- who happens to have a worldview and values that closely parallel those of the audiences in his chosen venues.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not criticizing Ben Stein for getting large sums of money to say things that his audience wants to hear. It's a basic matter of supply and demand, and as an economist he understands that as well as anyone on the planet. I simply want to make sure to remind myself that letting someone else do our thinking for us is a dangerous strategy, and while we need cheerleaders, the real action is on the playing field. Thursday night's pep talk was entertaining but I didn't leave better prepared for the game.

For additional, and differing, perspectives on his lecture, be sure to visit Wallace's post at Streams (if the permalink doesn't work, look for the 9/23/05 post), and the article in the Midland Reporter-Telegram. The one quibble I have with the latter article is in the use of "hundreds" to describe the number of people in attendance. That's technically correct, but conveys a different impression than if the more accurate "thousands" had been used.

*Perhaps the most interesting thing he revealed was during the Q&A that followed his prepared remarks, where he was asked about alternatives to the current income tax system. He espouses something like a VAT, but also specifically calls for the continuation of a progressive form of whatever tax system is used. In other words, he believes that the "rich" should pay proportionately more in taxes than the "poor." Given that many economists who hold political views similar to Stein's seem to agree that it's the wealthy who create the jobs and power the economic engine, I was somewhat surprised by his statement.

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