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• Classic-Fiction

• distinguishing a main idea from subordinate ideas, without bias

• judging the logical strength of arguments

When Colbert rants about a news item in “The WØRD” a directly opposing idea usually appears in a textbox at the right. By subverting his own character’s meaning quite directly, the vehicle usually implies that its opposite claim is true.

Before one installment, “Pencils Down,” Colbert attacks a Government Accounting Office (GAO) test for exposing weaknesses at our borders and ports—“It’s ruining the curve for everyone.” 29 Colbert goes on to call such tests “useless”:

COLBERT: Now another thing about tests, they disrupt the status quo. When someone fails a test it means they gotta do something. They have to study harder or think of a baby name.

BULLET: Or run as an Independent.

COLBERT: Exactly.

BULLET: Yes.

In a departure from his normal behavior, Colbert here acknowledges the bullet, but only to create his own echo chamber, much as media pundits echo back their own opinions rather than explore facts. He continues:

COLBERT: Well folks, I propose a new test. I say we test the testers. So, GAO, now that you’ve revealed lapses in our national security, you’ve got to answer the following questions. Question 1: Are you satisfied?

BULLET: Kinda scared, actually.

Ironically, Colbert tries to turn tests back on testers much as the bullet turns the intentions of Colbert back on himself.

COLBERT: Question 2: True or false: Who the Hell do you think you are?

BULLET: True?

Colbert attacks the bullet for speaking the truth. But in addition, this self-reflexive turn illustrates a principle of post-modernity, a period of philosophical fragmentation that arose in the late twentieth century. That principle is that every assertion risks being undermined by its own reasoning, much as the Colbert bullet routinely undermines Colbert the character.

In “deconstruction,” the stream of thought associated with the philosopher Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), any attempt at meaning is shot through with “différance.” On one hand, we understand words only by seeing how they differ with other words. On the other hand, every word always defers its meaning, as if pointing away, “Don’t look at me for a definition! Look at those other words.” (Look a word up in the dictionary, and you get only more words, and more definitions.) So the Colbert bullet at once differs with the naïveté of Colbert the character, but at the same time represents the critical opinion of Colbert the performer.

In a related portrayal of the endless egocentricity of political pundits, Colbert repeatedly tries to railroad interviewees into agreeing with him, regardless of the truth. In the segment “Better Know a District,” Colbert, referring to representatives who took illegal monies from disreputable source Jack Abramoff, says to a congressman, “Let’s just go ahead and say you took the money so that the rest of my questions make sense.”30 Rather than seek the truth, Colbert forces the answer to fit his presumptions.

Seeing religion as diametrically opposed to science’s truth claims, Colbert comes across a journal article entitled “Is There a Paleolimnological Explanation for ‘Walking on Water’ in the Sea of Galilee?” He is offended by such assertions:

So once again scientists are telling us what may have happened. If they had any balls, they’d just say “This is what did happen,” with or without evidence. That’s what the Bible does …31

Here Colbert complains about relying on facts to assert a claim, preferring to believe what he wishes were the truth, and with certainty rather than probability (which is more accurate), instead of actually finding it out. Ironically, by doing fairly extensive research in order to find such an article in a scholarly scientific journal, Colbert’s team actually goes to great lengths to stay informed.

When Colbert’s character refuses to look for evidence, let alone respect the value of checking out doubts, he embodies how good it would feel not to