Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [132]
And most of us do nothing else. We seemingly congratulate ourselves and the other members of the Colbert Nation for being smart enough to “get it” and that’s about all. We may buy the occasional book or wear a WristStrong bracelet, but we’re not leading marches or rallies. Even to the extent that we change our behavior to be greener, for example, we only do it when that consummate mouthpiece of the corporate agenda, the TV, tells us to do so. It’s only when the powerful corporations decide that a topic is mainstream enough to be on TV that we hear about it. And that means we hear about these topics only when they’ve become profitable for the dominant corporations.
But we should always remember that freem is a powerful concept because it’s so comfortable and soothing. By its nature it bestows upon those who believe in it a confirmation of the status quo and a huge boost to one’s self-confidence. The Report’s consistent editorial stance is that things are fine as they stand. At a recent pre-graduation ceremony, Dr. Colbert recently implored the graduates at Princeton not to go out and change the world simply because they had been educated to the point of being able to do so. He urged them to leave it the same as it is, since he and many others like it that way, and he promised that they would grow to like it, too. As long as you’re on the side that’s winning (even if only by a little and for a short while), freem is more than just a state of mind. It is your whole world. Keep buying those WristStrong bracelets and O’Reilly fleeces, keep providing Viacom with a good audience share. Keep doing all of this because, as all freemdom lovers everywhere know, consuming TV programs is the most patriotic act of all.212
TAKE THE ISHIHARA RACE TEST
Stephen Is Race-blind (And So Can You!)
JOHN JACOBSON and JEFFREY GAUTHIER
This is a test. Look closely at the following images. Your responses will determine whether you, like Stephen, are truly race-blind.
FIGURE 1: Stimulus A
FIGURE 2: How Stephen Sees Stimulus A
FIGURE 3: Stimulus B
FIGURE 4: How Stephen Sees Stimulus B
Here’s How to Evaluate Your Results
Figure 1. If you’re oblivious to the big ‘E’, you may suffer from Colbertian Race Blindness. For Colbert, blacks and whites look the same. If you see the big ‘E’, but want to know how the race-blind would see Figure 1, then look at Figure 2.
Of course Colbert could be faking, just putting us on, and pretending he cannot see the big letter. So, the race-blindness test battery includes stimuli such as Figure 3 in which normals see just bears and people who are race-blind can see a super-imposed figure; in this instance a lowercase letter ‘t’ (Figure 4).
As far as we know, race-blindness only afflicts whites, and is associated with, among other things, the confounding of racial equality with racial indifference, the belief that Chinese and Japanese are the same, and, in the worst cases, schizoid identity disorder (witness Colbert’s “People tell me I’m white, and I believe them because police call me ‘sir.’”213).
To truly generate empathy for the race-blind and see the world from their eyes, it’s useful to understand their view of the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968). According to the race-blind, Civil Rights philosophy discovered that whites and blacks are the same, with the same histories, the same developmental environments, and perfectly identical cultures. And when the race-blind imagine Dr. King’s vision of a colorblind society, all people are one color: white.214
Citizens of the Colbert Nation
DAVID DETMER is a Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University Calumet. He’s the author of three books: Sartre Explained (2008),