Glenn Beck's Emotional Blackmail
Glenn Beck has made a routine of crying on his program. He has even been caught using Vicks to bring out tears during a photoshoot. And last week, an article in the New York Times described GOP senatorial candidate J.D. Hayworth tearing up while discussing a movie about football. FF contributors N. Machiavelli and Tim Mak weigh in on the new conservative trend: public weeping.
Click here for N. Machiavelli's post.
It seems as though you can’t view a Glenn Beck clip without his eventual descent into blubbering something like, “I just love my country... and I fear for it!” And now this, from a New York Times profile of J.D. Hayworth, Sen. John McCain’s primary challenger in Arizona:
Mr. Hayworth’s radio-personality bluster and big emotions — he teared up in an interview when describing the film "The Blind Side" — ...may now have a part in the greater populist narrative that threatens many of the nation’s more centrist Republicans.
Why do figures like Beck and Hayworth cry? One explanation is that wailing encourages individuals to empathize with your point of view.
“Crying has a socially manipulative aspect, even when the crier is not completely aware of this motive,” said Jonathan Rottenberg, a professor of psychology at the University of South Florida.
Indeed, the sniffles that accompany Beck’s tea party rants and Hayworth’s talk-radio diatribes provide a greater impetus for listeners to act, as their whimpers serve as a sort of emotional blackmail. Ranting mixed with crying equals activism.
“[Crying] can be a guilt-inducing behavior,” said Dr. Judith Kay Nelson, a therapist and author of Seeing Through Tears: Crying and Attachment. “[It’s] an attachment behavior that brings about a care-giving response in other people... designed to get people to take action on your behalf.”
Beck and Hayworth's style of conservative rhetoric blends well with the emotional response generated by their sobbing. The combination of angry rhetoric and barely-stifled sobs generates a more powerful response than had they not preceded their sob sessions with anger.
"The tears -- at least in Beck's case -- serve as a cue for responding emotionally to their rhetoric, human beings having natural empathic abilities,” argues Aubrey Immelman, a psychologist at the College of Saint Benedict:
Another possible reason for the sobbing may be that weeping nowadays buys Main Street bona fides. Francesca Polletta, a sociologist at UC Irvine, argues:
Crying probably signals not only passion but authenticity--in contrast with what people see as the well-rehearsed spin of politics as usual - witness Palin's characterization of Obama as a charismatic guy with a teleprompter.
But that explanation can only be true to the extent that the crying is genuine - Glenn Beck was shown to have used Vicks to fake cry for a photoshoot. Falsifying tears can be seen as an effort to get people to pay attention to a potential loss, rather than one that has already occurred, argued Dr. Judith Kay Nelson:
[Glenn Beck] is crying over a potential loss, a threatened loss, so he is trying to get people to feel as if the loss were to happen... He is playing on a potential loss about the qualities of the country they feel are significant.
Crying is a visceral experience, and seizes upon the brain in an all-consuming way. In a sense, Beck and Hayworth’s weeping illustrate the problems with the tea party movement itself – it’s too much about feeling, and not enough about thinking.
The rhetoric and weeping "of demagogues like Glenn Beck...is powerful because it slips through the cracks in our acculturated human rationality... to hit a nerve in the limbic system: the seat of emotion," said Immelman.
“[Crying] reaches out to us in a powerful non-verbal way... It cuts through logic by grabbing us physiologically.” added Nelson.