Bill O'Reilly -- Secrets of Success

I've just read most of a new book, "A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity," by right-wing commentator Bill O'Reilly (I hope that's the right way to characterize him). The book was given to me by my very right-wing father-in-law, perhaps with the hope that it would help to straighten out my thinking.

Interestingly, I agreed with many of Bill's beliefs -- in justice and fair play, for instance.

But as I read on (and on and on), I realized what Bill's blind spot was. His implicit (and sometimes explicit) argument throughout this childhood-memoir-as-polemic is: "I didn't start out with any advantages, and I made it, so anyone can." He often compares himself with his classmates at various educational levels, classmates who came from wealthy and socially prominent families. He harps on the fact that he had none of their advantages going for him.

Ergo, he's saying, any kid from the slums, any kid from a broken family, any abused child of alcoholic or drug-using parents, has no excuse for not striving and becoming a success.

So where's the blind spot? Right here: Again and again, Bill tells of his somewhat cold and unsympathetic father, who, when Bill came crying to him about some mistreatment at the hands of other kids, would tell him, "Don't come crying to me. Get out there and fix it yourself." And he talks about the nuns at the parochial schools where he got his early education -- they were tough, and their educational and disciplinary techniques may have been questionable, but they set tough standards and demanded that kids live up to them.

(It's a little ironic that as Bill talks about his first teaching job in Florida, he criticizes most of his fellow teachers for failing to set up the sorts of expectations he sets up for his students; he feels that most of the faculty disliked him as much as he disliked them, because he was willing to be tough and they weren't. But he fails to recognize that the majority of students have missed out on something he had and which he as a teacher was trying to instill.)

So Bill, even if he lacked material advantages, had the indispensable advantages of self-reliance, self-confidence, discipline, and high standards. And, though he can claim credit for retaining and using these characteristics, he cannot claim to have invented or discovered them on his own. In his life were some powerful influences -- without which he would almost certainly have amounted to nothing.

The moral: It's not, as Bill accuses liberals of, to coddle criminals and bums because they didn't have the advantages. It's not to overlook criminality and laziness. No. But our moral obligation is to do everything in our power -- as individuals and and as a society -- to create learning environments (and to improve parenting) so that every young person acquires values -- and motivation -- similar to that which inspired Bill O'Reilly to strive, to compete, and to succeed in life.