Mind you, I listen in the car to Rush Limbaugh whenever I can. I enjoy him and am informed by him about the events of the day. I think his views on the issues are mostly correct, and he's not at all the man his critics often portray him to be. He's neither a hater nor a bigot. Like all of us, however, he does have his faults. His egotism is, unfortunately, only partly a pose, though he at least has the virtue of acknowledging it, unlike Sean Hannity who constantly reminds us, implausibly, that he's humbled by his success. Limbaugh's biggest flaw, however, is something else, something much more insidious than his mildly amusing bombast.
Joseph Knippenberg puts his finger on it in a post at No Left Turns in which he discusses a column by David Brooks. Brooks describes for us a "typical" affluent middle-aged American male whom he calls "Patio Man". Patio Man is concerned much more about stability, order, and his 401k than he is about the issues that stoke the fire in the hearts of the political bases of both left and right.
Knippenberg says this:
Patio Man doesn't appear to care much about social issues, according to Brooks. Judging from my neighbors, he's probably right. But that's because he and they wrongly think that you can have economic and social stability without a strong moral foundation. I don't blame proponents of abortion rights and same-sex marriage for the fix we're in. Their attitudes are symptomatic, not foundational. The foundational attitude is the self-indulgence in which we all share, a self-indulgence that is articulated every day on the radio by Rush Limbaugh and that is practiced by Patio Men, Women, and Children, but not so much by their parents and grandparents.
This is exactly right, and it goes to the core of my biggest problem with Rush, who is otherwise a national treasure. Day after day, show after show, Limbaugh champions a lifestyle of consumption and indulgence. Some of this is just intended to tweak the nose of the left, to be sure, but there can be no denying that he really does advocate conspicuous consumption.
I know his defenders will point to the fact that the man gives fortunes to charity and should be permitted his foibles, and I agree that he certainly seems to be generous beyond that to which most people aspire. Even so, his munificence occurs relatively quietly and without much fanfare whereas his self-indulgence is trumpeted publicly and blatantly. The lesson that a lot of people might be taking from his show, then, is not that charitableness is a virtue but that consuming is. I think this is a toxic message to spread abroad and has a pernicious influence on people, especially young adults, the patio men who might better be encouraged to constrain their appetites and to live comfortably but modestly. Indeed, if more of us valued a greater simplicity we probably wouldn't be seeing so much economic volatility and so many home foreclosures.
The idea of living large and boasting of one's excesses is one of the fundamentals, evidently, in Rush's philosophy of life, but it's one I'd be happy to see him push aside. He does a lot of good, in my opinion, but he's in a position to do a great deal more. I think it sad that he doesn't see it that way.
RLC
