Critique and Criticism of Bill O'Reilly's "Culture Warrior":

I recently read (on audio book) about half of Bill O'Reiley's Culture Warrior book. While I may yet finish the book, just for entertainment, I think I've got the message.

To be fair, I should tell that I do not usually agree with Mr. O'Reiley. I find him to be thoughtful, articulate, and bold, but often misguided. I knew that I would take exception to large parts of what he had to say before I heard him say it. But, I was very interested in hearing a full and organized articulation of some of his ideas, which the book certainly was.

My main critique of O'Reilly is that he has made a mistake by assuming causality where it is not, and missing causality where it is.

Mr. O'Reilly proposes that our culture is moving away from traditional conservative values and towards a secular atheist worldview. With this I fully agree.

However, O'Reilly seems to believe that the ideological leaders cause the movement towards secularism. These leaders become his targets - his enemies in the culture war. As such, he spends most of the book exposing and berating the activities of the ACLU, the liberal media, the liberal education elite, and Hollywood liberals.

I would propose that the leaders of the secularization ideology are entirely replaceable. O'Reilly could systematically eliminate and defeat every one of his targets, and secularization would continue. The causes of secularization are not the ideologues. Rather, secularization is occurring, and the ideologues are responding by continuing to take their position at the leading edge. The ACLU feels free to step up its war on Christmas, for example, once the culture at large has fully embraced the latest movement away from Christmas. The ACLU is providing leadership, but the power behind the bus comes from the culture at large.

In some spots, O'Reilly comes close to recognizing this. Secularization certainly existed before Alec Baldwin and George Clooney. And, O'Reilly hints that these guys are replaceable.

So, the real gap in O'Reilly's work is the failure to recognize the fundamental causes of secularization. Without doing so, the best he can hope to accomplish is to chop off heads of the hydra. But they will always grow back.

From what I have read elsewhere (and I won't be able to quote sources), secularization has been happening since the industrial revolution, when our relationship to work changed. There has been a so-called "corruption of the protestant work ethic". The early protestant work ethic was to serve God in all things first and foremost, including expressing one's servitude to God by working diligently and ethically. The modern version of the protestant work ethic is to serve one's work first (which is actually serving one's self and the ones own material needs and wants) while placing service to God in second place. Work and money have replaced God and faith as the primary focus of our lives participation.

So, O'Reilly definition of the culture war is lacking. This new relationship to work, and the subsequent new relationships to money and consumerism replacing God and faith, as the centerpiece of our cultural table must be addressed. The rapid rise of secularization in the baby boomer generation must be addressed. I have heard discussions that the failure of mainstream religions to take strong ethical positions on Vietnam pushed the counter-culture towards secular ethics. That needs to be discussed. The material world of the 80s, modern executive pay standards and the race for wealth, minority "get rich or die tryin'" gangster culture; these things are part of O'Reilly's culture war that he hasn't even looked at. And, none of them are have set into motion by George Soros or the liberal media.

Overall, I found the book to be quite thought provoking. Though, the thoughts it provoked in me were not the ones O'Reilly intended.

P.S.
A word on language: O'Reilly chooses his words carefully. He carefully labels himself as a “traditionalist” as opposed to a “conservative”. As near as I can tell, there is no difference, except that “traditionalist” is a new word with less emotional attachment than “conservative”. (A conservative wants to “conserve” traditional values, while a traditionalist wants to conserve “traditional” values.) He also labels progressives as “secular-progressives” or “SP”. This is an interesting twist. Since the word “liberal” has been so abused, most liberals have taken up calling themselves “progressives”. O’Reilly adds the word “secular” to this so as to make the phrase distasteful to the religious choir to whom he is preaching. As I listened to the book, I found that in every instance of the word “secular” or “atheist”, one could substitute the word “materialist”, and it works. I think “materialist” works better than “secular” or “atheist” since both of those words refer to a lack of belief, and people do not act upon a lack of belief, they act on beliefs. The belief that drives secularization is materialism, in both senses: (1) that the universe is a material phonominon and needs no God to explain it, and (2) that material satisfactions are the object of human existence.