Book Review: Bill O'Rielly's "Culture Warrior"

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boosterjuice

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I must say, this New York Times bestseller was a great read.

Bill O'Rielly has clearly outlined that America is in the midst of a culture war. On the one side, the "secular progressives" are attacking judeo-christian heritage while the "traditionalists" are standing on the sidelines and, in effect, letting their cherished values diminish. Bill calls on the traditional forces to mobilize and become traditional warriors in order to save the country.

This is a fantastic book. I enjoyed O'Rielly's writing style and he makes a very convincing argument. Love him or hate him, O'Rielly's findings are rock solid. For those left leaning members of this forum (99% of you), I recommend that you give this a read to better understand tradionalist thought process and values.

Anyone else read this?
 
that book has as much credibility as any other piece of merchandise Bill wants to hawk to his followers.

he's in it for a buck, and a brand.

http://www.billoreilly.com/store

and America's foundational "values" can be found in the secular Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries. John Locke has much, much more to do with our system of governmet than Jesus Christ.
 
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boosterjuice said:
Have you read it? If not, why do you assume it has little credibility?



because it's Bill O'Reilly.

he's not an intellectual. he's not an historian. he's a pundit. he's not as shrill as, say, Ann Coulter, but his pirmary motivations are to increase the scope of his brand. i'm sure he believes the things he says, and it's not to say that he's "wrong," but accurate or not isn't the point or the motivation for his writing.

enjoy the book as entertainment, because it doesn't have much credibility as anything more than that.
 
just as an example:

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Irvine,

If you dismissed every book that made a profit then your reading list would be extremely short. Most authors strive to make a living through their work and I see nothing wrong with that. Profitability doesn't equate fallacy.

Being a historian has little to with the subject matter in "Culture Warrior". O'Rielly's position allows him to make credible commentary based on third party investigations. As far as being intellectual, O'Rielly often reminds his viewers of his Harvard education.

But, I totally agree with you that he is trying to market his book. Every single Factor program that I've viewed he mentions his book.
 
boosterjuice said:
Irvine,

If you dismissed every book that made a profit then your reading list would be extremely short. Most authors strive to make a living through their work and I see nothing wrong with that. Profitability doesn't equate fallacy.

Being a historian has little to with the subject matter in "Culture Warrior". O'Rielly's position allows him to make credible commentary based on third party investigations. As far as being intellectual, O'Rielly often reminds his viewers of his Harvard education.

But, I totally agree with you that he is trying to market his book. Every single Factor program that I've viewed he mentions his book.


but he's not trying to make profit on the book alone, he's using the book to further his status as a brand where he can sell more t-shirts, mugs, hats, and hoodies.

i'm sure there's little in the way of history or in-depth analysis in Culture Warrior. which is why it is what it is: entertainment.

O'Reilly also got a master's degree at Harvard, he did not go there undergraduate or for a law degree. i think he's smart, a shrewd debater (though the show is perfectly suited to his debating style, and he always goes for the easy stuff, the easy moral outrage stories "pedophile priests! sexual predators!"), but let's not think that he's an intellectual on par with, say, Christopher Hitchens or whomever else is failing to leap to my mind.

i'd actually put O'Reilly a step above Limbaugh in terms of intelligence and thoughtfulness, and certainly above Hannity or Coulter, but it's all the same stuff.
 
The problem here Irvine is you are labelling people as "intellectuals" if, and only if, they match your political/social beliefs.

To label "culture warrior" as entertainment is foolish. O'Rielly points out legitimate arguments and the reality of the situation is that America is in a culture war. There's nothing entertaining about it.
 
boosterjuice said:
The problem here Irvine is you are labelling people as "intellectuals" if, and only if, they match your political/social beliefs.

To label "culture warrior" as entertainment is foolish. O'Rielly points out legitimate arguments and the reality of the situation is that America is in a culture war. There's nothing entertaining about it.



no, that's not true at all.

i'd consider William F. Buckley an intellectual. i'd consider Charles Krauthammer an intellectual. same with William Safire or George Will.

O'Reilly doesn't belong in the same category as these people. no one who thinks that there's a "war on christmas" can be taken seriously in an intellecual context.

you know that feeling of outrage you get when you read "Culture Warrior"? that feeling of dread, yet a conviction that you, as a Christian, must do more to protect our children and our culture? that feeling of clarity when you see the lines that O'Reilly has drawn for you between traditional values people and secular progressives?

that's all intended. that's all part of the entertainment value of the book. that's his goal. it's one side versus the other, and the more you identify with him (through the process of identifying yourself against those he's highlighted as being against your set of values, values he's helping you define), the more likely you are to buy into the brand and watch his TV show, buy his books, and maybe get your dad a coffee mug for christmas.
 
To be fair, I consider Bill O'Reilly to be a very intelligent man. He's well informed in matters of the law and foreign policy. I also consider him to be a brilliant media personality who knows his audience well.

If you watch his TV show, do yourself a favor and when he goes off on something, take notes, go to your computer and look up the actual facts of the issue. 7 times out of 10, you'll discover that O'Reilly either leaves out key facts, distorts or bends the truth, or flat out lies.

I haven't read his latest book, but I suspect it's no different.
 
boosterjuice said:
The problem here Irvine is you are labelling people as "intellectuals" if, and only if, they match your political/social beliefs.

To label "culture warrior" as entertainment is foolish. O'Reilly points out legitimate arguments and the reality of the situation is that America is in a culture war. There's nothing entertaining about it.

Seems the majority of FYM takes the Dave Letterman point of view: "Haven't watched your show much, or read any of your books, but my friends say you're completely full of crap!"

If a person actually gives O'Reilly a fair chance, they will see he is a conservative, and a loudmouth....but surely not a Coulter, or a Limbaugh, or a Hannity. Dare I say, he's close to your average pragmatic American! :eek:
 
Bluer White said:


Seems the majority of FYM takes the Dave Letterman point of view: "Haven't watched your show much, or read any of your books, but my friends say you're completely full of crap!"

If a person actually gives O'Reilly a fair chance, they will see he is a conservative, and a loudmouth....but surely not a Coulter, or a Limbaugh, or a Hannity. Dare I say, he's close to your average pragmatic American! :eek:


erm, not me -- we've discussed him before, and my objections to him are less his POVs but his excessive merchandising and self-promotion. that, and his show rests on easy, easy "outrage" on issues like (gasp!) pedophile priests or that some movies (gasp!) shouldn't be watched by children. i've put him above Coulter and Hannity, yet neither of them have been accused of sexual harassment and had to settle out of court ...

O'Reilly positions himself as some sort of avenging angel of the working class, a dumbed-down moralizing version of Lou Dobbs -- where Lou worries about jobs, Bill is concerned with cowboys kissing in a tent.
 
martha said:
Life is too short to read books by people I think are full of shit.

I'm reading a book about the aurora borealis right now. Before that, the Kolb Brothers' book about their 1911 boat trip down the Colorado River. :shrug:



but i bet those books don't make you feel ... OUTRAGE!!!
 
Irvine511 said:
O'Reilly positions himself as some sort of avenging angel of the working class, a dumbed-down moralizing version of Lou Dobbs -- where Lou worries about jobs, Bill is concerned with cowboys kissing in a tent.

I believe that O'Reilly is intrigued that movies such as "Brokeback Mountain" can become a media sensation, while some of his own bestselling books are not reviewed in the NYT.

And although according to your analysis, Bill may appear to be very troubled about "cowboys kissing in tent," his position regarding gay marriage and civil unions is very similar to Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's.
 
Bluer White said:
I believe that O'Reilly is intrigued that movies such as "Brokeback Mountain" can become a media sensation, while some of his own bestselling books are not reviewed in the NYT.



are you really comparing an Oscar winning film that was widely regarded -- by everyone but the Academy, incidentally -- as the best movie of 2005, as well as a profound cultural moment, with a book by Bill O'Reilly? on what grounds do we evaluate O'Reilly's books? does Hannity get reviewed? Coulter? G. Gordon Liddy? Limbaugh? likewise, does Michael Moore get reviewed (books, not his movies)?

and think about how incredibly self-absorbed and self-serving that sentence is for O'Reilly.


And although according to your analysis, Bill may appear to be very troubled about "cowboys kissing in tent," his position regarding gay marriage and civil unions is very similar to Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's.

while i agree that his position on gay marriage/unions is quite mainstream, his whole "eww, gross! i'm not gonna see THAT movie! makes me uncomfortable" was immature for even a high school locker room.

and this gets at the problem. it's O'Reilly's delivery that's become more important than his actual stance, and that's due to his own carefully constructed image.

i know he drips with heterosexuality and white male Americanness -- and, really, who does Bill speak for other than white straight christian male americans of moderate incomes? -- but i suppose he'd feel better cozying up to a loofah.
 
martha said:
Life is too short to read books by people I think are full of shit.

I'm wondering what specific policies you disagree with O'Reilly on?

Or you do simply despise his public persona, the way he delivers his point of view, and his money-grubbing capitalistic tendencies? (which are all legitimate reasons to dislike him, by the way)
 
Irvine511 said:



erm, not me -- we've discussed him before, and my objections to him are less his POVs but his excessive merchandising and self-promotion. that, and his show rests on easy, easy "outrage" on issues like (gasp!) pedophile priests or that some movies (gasp!) shouldn't be watched by children. i've put him above Coulter and Hannity, yet neither of them have been accused of sexual harassment and had to settle out of court ...

O'Reilly positions himself as some sort of avenging angel of the working class, a dumbed-down moralizing version of Lou Dobbs -- where Lou worries about jobs, Bill is concerned with cowboys kissing in a tent.

Come on Irvine, you're overstating things.

O'Rielly offers far more coverage than pedophiles and cowboys kissing. I wish more media personalities were as vocal and passionate as he is.
 
boosterjuice said:


Bill O'Rielly has clearly outlined that America is in the midst of a culture war. On the one side, the "secular progressives" are attacking judeo-christian heritage while the "traditionalists" are standing on the sidelines and, in effect, letting their cherished values diminish. Bill calls on the traditional forces to mobilize and become traditional warriors in order to save the country.

This sounds so patently absurd that if it's a summary of the book's contents, I'd rather scrub my toilet than read it.

It's so ridiculous that I have to wonder if it's meant to be taken as a satire.
 
boosterjuice said:

I wish more media personalities were as vocal and passionate as he is.



i really disagree with you here.

i wish the news hadn't gotten so emotionalist and filled with "truthiness" -- is something true because i looked it up in a book, or because i feel it in my gut?

do you watch Stephen Colbert?

he's a send-up of O'Reilly, and a brilliant one at that.
 
I like chatter in the background so I often have talk radio on at work and sometimes at home, and since talk radio means rightwing radio (My local station has a liberal morning program followed by 13 straight hours of rightwing --local, Rush, Hannity, O'Reilly, Savage and then 7 hours of supernatural/conspiracy theory/pseudoscience) I'm pretty well versed first hand.

O'Reilly was smart enough to not hang his hat on one political party so didn't have to do credibility straining cartwheels or make absolutely absurd statements which would lose your possibly rightleaning but not quite true believer audience. He was smart enough not to focus on the conservative vs. liberal philosophy. Instead he couched it in traditional vs. secular progressive, gut issues. (He's puts himself on the side of the traditionalists--no surprise there.) Rush and Hannity's fortunes lie with the Republicans' performance (or perceived performance) and their shows border on almost pure propaganda. O'Reilly has left himself escape hatches. If the Republicans up and start murdering children, Rush and Hannity will have to scramble to convince their audience that murdering children has some kind of moral superiority. O'Reilly's not in danger of that.

(I don't have access to much leftwing talk radio, but suspect if I did, I would feel much the same way about it that I do about
most rightwing radio--preaching to the choir, demonizing or ridiculing the opposition, part of some wise club that they flatter their audience as being part of.)

I find O'Reilly tolerable. He gives a fairly pragmatic image. He comes across as intelligent, moderate, hardnosed, less of a pure ideologue. He also comes across as condescending ("looking out for the folks") paranoid with a persecution complex--I can't tell you how many segments of his program he has dedicated to vilifying somebody who criticized him or didn't give him the proper deference he thought he was due. With a colossal ego and a stance that only he will tell you the whole truth. According to him, he wins every argument (And the occasional kneejerk, stupid idea of readying his audience to boycott Canada if he deems it necessary--he likes to ready his audience to do his bidding, lol)

I've read a couple of his books (not the fiction ones:no:) and found them readable and lightweight. I didn't hear anything different from his radio program and would suspect that would be the case with "Culture Warrior". (My father has the book. I can't say I won't read it if I need a light read) On the surface, he makes an OK case. You can get warm and fuzzy and nostalgic and weepy about the traditional and can get outraged about judges who hand out light sentences to child molesters or fearful about some agenda he thinks the secular progressives are promoting. But he presents it as an either/or choice. Not being an either/or person, I'm not particularly swayed. Like anyone presenting a case, we're not getting the whole truth. Maybe it is the truth as he perceives it (or not). Whatever. It sells.

Maybe you can use it as a discussion point, but it's not the end of the discussion. I don't totally discount him, like I do Rush or Hannity, but I don't buy the whole package either.

Like Irvine pointed out, he's got a successful brand and everything is orchestrated to keep that brand successful. There is spin in that no spin zone. You'd be foolish to think there isn't.
 
boosterjuice said:


Bill calls on the traditional forces to mobilize and become traditional warriors in order to save the country.

This is so wrong, on so many levels.

Bill wants a real true civil war. He wants to see libruls dying in the streets from gunfire. In what way does he differ from the eliminationist fascism of Ann Coulter and all the rest who are busy feeding the fires of hate?

What do these people stand for, beyond white-hot rage and hatred toward, well I'm not sure toward what.... plenty of genuine old-time conservatives would have little in common with their raving rhetoric.

One day, if Bill and the rest of us are unlucky, his culture war might turn hot. What then? Do you want to be a 'traditional warrior', Boosterjuice? Can I have some of what you're drinking?

I take people like Bill O'Reilly very seriously indeed... and I am terrified. OF them.
 
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