Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [25]
COLBERT (RED): Yeah but what if the cake is exploding, and we’re caught in a violent sectarian struggle between the flour and the eggs?42
As often occurs in the segment, one Colbert (here in red tie) argues sincerely against Colbert’s usual pundit character, here weighing the tradeoffs involved in extending U.S. military power in a war that may be worsening security.
COLBERT (BLUE): Hey, a bakery is no place for the squeamish. We placed our soldiers in that oven and we have to keep them there ‘til the cake is done.
COLBERT (RED): But if you leave the cake in too long, it’ll dry out.
COLBERT (BLUE): Well, if it’s too dry, we’ll just wash it down with milk.
COLBERT (RED): Wait, what does the milk represent?
COLBERT (BLUE): Ahh [shrugging shoulders], oil?
COLBERT (RED): Well, we must not bake a cake over oil. No blood for milk!
COLBERT (BLUE): What?
COLBERT (RED): I’m sorry, I’ve lost the metaphor.
At one surface level, the exchange shows how one risks incoherence in any communication if one sticks solely to speaking in metaphors for too long.
Further, though, when questioned about unforeseen consequences of the war, Colbert refuses to weigh the risk of ruining the very reasons we went to war. Rather than correct his own reasoning, Colbert avoids answering the question. To do so, he simply makes up something to suit his metaphor (milk/oil), as if to say that weighing tradeoffs matters less than sounding good.
The exchange then takes a surreal turn:
COLBERT (RED): Um, you know, we should probably wrap this up. You sir, are a …
COLBERT (BLUE): So you admit defeat?
COLBERT (RED): No, I’m just getting us out of this.
COLBERT (BLUE): Well, the minute you leave I’m gonna claim I won.
COLBERT (RED): It’s not a tie if I’m the only one left. You should, ah, cut and run along.
COLBERT (RED): Make me. [a gun is raised at red-tied Colbert’s face] Two can play at that game. [raising his own gun at the other’s face] Get out!
COLBERT (BLUE): [gun in face] I will see you in Hell! [wrapping his mouth around the gun barrel] Go ahead.43
Portraying such violent potential, the exchange acts as if to symbolize the way that an argument will always return to one’s preconceptions if one never seeks to correct or modify them. However, arguments can risk deadly consequences when people identify with positions personally. All the more reason to be judicious and try to consider counterpoints fairly before leaping to action.
Under-Confidence in Reason: Once It’s Easier Said, then It’s Done
Confident in reasoning:
• trust in the processes of reasoned inquiry
• self-confidence in one’s own abilities to reason as opposed to blindly relying on authority
Colbert often cuts off an interviewee, “Clearly you’re uncomfortable with the subject, let’s move on.” While the guest might simply disagree, Colbert has no confidence in reasoned exchanged but only in manipulating discourse. He also relies on authorities blindly, as when he argues, “Isn’t the Bush administration’s leadership a lot like religion? You just have faith that they’re gonna do the right thing… . There’s a reason why God put him in office.”44
In another edition of Formidable Opponent, Colbert opines on the controversial issue of embryonic stem cell research. Wearing his red tie he says, “An issue this explosive should only be handled by history’s greatest moral philosophers. A Maimonides, a Socrates, a Thomas Aquinas …,” then the Colbert in blue tie cuts in, “A Stephen Colbert. This is Formidable Opponent.”45 Placing himself in the canon of ancient and medieval philosophers, Colbert portrays how pundits display over-exuberant confidence, not in reason but in their own authority.
Thinking critically, by contrast, requires that you develop confidence not in your self as an authority but in the self’s capacity for reason, the possibility that one can think issues through without simply resorting to an authority. By contrast,