Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [28]
Viewers of The Colbert Report instantly see a critique of Aristotle’s “serious man.” Colbert claims, after all, to be himself the “canon and measure” of all virtue: I Am America, (And So Can You!). Colbert’s audience thus has a preliminary conception of Plato and Aristotle’s very different approaches, specifically as Aristotle’s quest for seriousness reflects a less radical conception of philosophy. Whereas Plato is typically intent to critique pompous claims of seriousness and omniscient perfection (whether made by politicians or sophist-philosopher types), Aristotle is typically intent to legitimate authority.
Stephen Colbert’s satire of the “character-driven” news has much in common with the parodies of the sophists found in Plato, particularly in the early Socratic dialogues, which are always critical of claims to authority. In the dialogue Protagoras, the famed sophist who claims to know and teach all virtue, appears as a “serious man” among a party of obsequious disciples, men “enchanted” by his weighty pontificating, holding forth with a “voice like Orpheus.”52 Likewise in the same dialogue, the words of the sophist Prodicus are not intelligible, but “owing to the depth of his voice the room was filled with a booming sound.”53 So viewers of The Report witness Colbert without a hair out of place, bearing all the external marks of seriousness, “walking tall and speaking in a deep tone of voice.” Colbert no less than Protagoras, Prodicus and Aristotle, claims to himself be “the canon and measure,” offering to all his “Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger.”
Politics, Play, and the End of Life
Aristotle’s veneration of “the serious man” hearkens back to the authority claimed by politicians and sophists in the polis, the classical Greek city-state. His arguments are echoed by numerous philosophical voices throughout later history, but in many respects the traditional Aristotelian prejudices against play go against the institutions and traditions of ancient Greek culture. The Greeks not only gave us philosophy and democracy, but the Olympics and the dramatic contests which produced comedy and tragedy. Some have suggested that, “the whole of life was play for the Greeks!”54
To appreciate the political significance of play and playfulness among the ancient Greeks (as well as the connection between play and the origin of western philosophy), we should keep in mind that the Greek word for education, “paideia,” is rooted in the words for child and play: “pais” and “paidia.” Along these lines we might also think of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus (around 535-475 B.C.), who, more than a century before Aristotle, considered playfulness to be essential to the nature of reality itself: “time [eternity, history or an individual lifetime] is a child at play; that child is the legitimate authority in the world.”55 Given such reverence for play and playfulness, it’s not surprising that Heraclitus is also believed to have said, “A man is most himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.”
For Aristotle however, there is no possibility of confusing authority and playfulness or play with the “leisure,” “skhole,” of “the serious man.” The serious, mature man engages in pleasurable leisured activities such as philosophizing, but these are not children’s activities, for “a thing that is an end does not belong to anything that is imperfect.”56 Play, Aristotle explains, is not “the end of life,” but merely necessary for rest and relaxation: “for a man who is at work needs rest and rest is the object of play.” Play is