Last week the writer and great social media follower Craig Lindsey offered up the observation that “Ben Carson is like that family member we all have that lies about [stuff] there is absolutely no reason to lie about.”
Some folks will take exception to the characterization of Carson’s storytelling—in his 1996 autobiography Gifted Hands and on the stump—as lying. Sure, he couldn’t have been offered a full scholarship to West Point because no such thing exists. But it is possible that, as a top Junior ROTC cadet, Carson did meet Gen. William Westmoreland, and that the general may have encouraged him to apply. To an impressionable young man, such an experience might have felt tantamount to a scholarship offer. And since he decided against pursuing it and followed another path, when he sat down to write about it in his memoirs decades later, he might have honestly believed what he’d written was a fair characterization of events.
Technically, he wasn’t offered a scholarship. But maybe young Ben assumed the fix was in and an appointment was his for the asking. I can see that.
Also, regardless of whether the various biographical details called into question by CNN, the Wall Street Journal and Politico are embellished or invented, Carson’s story is impressive and inspiring. He did rise from ghetto poverty in Detroit to attend Yale and the University of Michigan Medical School. His achievements as Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital were real. He was deserving of the Presidential Medal of Freedom he was awarded in 2008.
Why do we even care if he actually tried to hit his mother over the head with a hammer, or whether his attempt to stab a friend—wait, a family member—was thwarted by a belt buckle? (Why do we care that no one seems to remember Carson as a particularly violent kid?)
So what if he can’t remember the names of the white classmates to whom he provided sanctuary during the race riots that erupted in the wake of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? (So what if nobody else can remember him acting heroically?) So what if it seems unlikely that he might have been named “the most honest student” in a Yale psychology class that apparently never existed?
Many of these anecdotes come from a book that’s nearly 20 years old and was published by an evangelical press. At the time, Carson wasn’t running for anything. I don’t know about you, but it seems silly to expect a book to withstand any sort of serious fact-checking. George Washington probably didn’t chop down a cherry tree either.
It’s not hard to see why someone might embellish their life in an autobiography, why they might hyperbolize some incidents while omitting others. Why they might conflate and confabulate. In a would-be inspirational book for a faith-based press, it would make sense to stress the depths of one’s depravity; the “once was lost, but now I’m found” angle adds to the redemptive arc.
Shouldn’t any reasonable person approach a book like Gifted Hands with at least a little skepticism? Like there’s a tacit legend beneath the title that reads “inspired by a true story?” Such books are by nature suspect. Frederick Douglass’ two autobiographies are famously unreliable; I would imagine that even St. Augustine could be impeached had we the ability to call witnesses.
We can forgive Carson his creative interpretations of the past. (“What difference does it make?”) All of us have difficulty being honest with ourselves—Carl Jung thought that it was impossible for us to acknowledge the absolute truth about our lives. Carson probably believes he told the substantial truth. As Ludwig Wittgenstein put it: “Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.”
What does concern me is the remarkable ability this unquestionably brilliant man has displayed for believing crazy things. It worries me that he puts so much stock in the paranoid rantings of conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, the author of The Naked Communist who the National Review once characterized as an “all-around nutjob.” It worries me when he says Medicare and Medicaid fraud in this country amounts to “half a trillion dollars.” (It doesn’t. Not even close.) It worries me when he suggests the pyramids were built by the Old Testament figure Joseph to store grain.
In his 2012 book America the Beautiful: Discovering What Made This Nation Great, Carson writes, “I believe it is a very good idea for physicians, scientists, engineers, and others trained to make decisions based on facts and empirical data to get involved in the political arena and help guide our country.”
He’s right about that. Yet he consistently flies in the face of facts and empirical data. He has said he believes homosexuality is a choice and that marriage equality is a Marxist plot. That President Obama is a possibly treasonous “psychopath” who might decide not to leave office in 2016 in the wake of an anarchist uprising. That the U.S. is “very much like Nazi Germany.”
My concern about Carson is limited; we’re still a year out from the election and I believe that he’s very much the GOP’s analog to Bernie Sanders. He might influence the eventual nominee, but barring some unprecedented realignment of political realities, he’s not going to be the Republican nominee.
Yeah, I know what some polls say. Check back in a year.
—––––– › –––––—
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.