Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [5]
Well, I won’t be doing that. I am going straight for the jugular. I will argue that they are dum … dang it, sorry … grossly mistaken. Maybe it seems like I am beating up a straw man—thinking from the gut is so obviously stupid; and it is! And if it didn’t happen ALL THE TIME, I wouldn’t bother. But it does. That is why Colbert mocks it; that is why I will refute it. And perhaps, the next time you run into your friend, you can make him read this chapter so he can realize that he shouldn’t think from the gut.
My Truth
[My book is] not just some collection of reasoned arguments supported by facts. That is the coward’s way out. This book is Truth. My Truth.
—Stephen Colbert, from the introduction to I Am America (And So Can You!)
There are a couple of ways that Colbert thinks from the gut. Sometimes he’s a relativist. There are many kinds of relativism, but the form Colbert seems to espouse in the above quote is called “individual relativism.” All forms of relativism suggest that there is no truth in a universal sense; truth is relative. Individual relativism suggests that truth is relative to individuals. Truth can be “mine.” But what does that mean?
Well, first, we have to understand what “truth” is. A table can’t be true, although it might be sturdy. The action of walking can’t be true, although it could be straight. A person can’t be true, although she can be truthful. In philosophy, truth is a property had only by propositions or beliefs. “Magic is Colbert’s all time favorite science” (I Am America, p. 200) is something that can be true. (It could also be false.) And a proposition or belief is true if it accurately corresponds to the way the world is.5 (If it doesn’t, it’s false.) “Rosie O’Donnell is a blazing liberal.” That’s true because it accurately describes the world. Philosophers call the part of the world that makes a proposition true its “truthmaker.” Rosie O’Donnell and her political beliefs are the truthmaker for the proposition “Rosie O’Donnell is a blazing liberal.”
Next, we have to understand what it is for a truth to be relative. Some truths actually are relative. “You should drive on the right side of the road.” There is no piece of the world that makes this statement universally true (true “everywhere”). What side of the road you should drive on is dependent upon the tradition or laws of the place you are in. That proposition is true in America, but false in England; its truth is relative to culture. An example of something that is relative to an individual is taste in comedy. You think Jane Fonda fondling Colbert during an interview about her new movie Georgia Rule is funny.6 Your friend doesn’t get it. The truth of “Jane Fonda fondling Colbert is funny” is relative to the individual. It depends on what you thought. It’s kind of like having a favorite band. It’s not like there is a universal truth about “Metallica is the best band ever.” It’s a matter of preference. Something similar can be said about the false dichotomy Colbert presented Barney Frank: “President Bush: Great president, or the greatest president?”7
The individual relativist suggests that all truths are like this. In the same way that the truth of propositions about comic value and music preference are relative to individuals, the truth of propositions about politics, morality and religion are relative to individuals too. There’s no universal truth; there is just what you think. “You should drive on the right side of the road” can be true for Americans but not for the British; “Abortion is wrong” can be true for one person, but not for another. One who thinks that there is universal truth is wrong. If your gut tells you something’s true, it’s true for you.
But the absurdity of individual relativism becomes quite obvious upon even