Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [57]
So let’s take a beautiful idea to its logical conclusion and not only leave the past behind but deny that the past ever happened. Like this:
America is not a land of immigrants.
There. Was that so hard to say? It makes sense if you think about it. It feels like we’ve been here forever, doesn’t it? Let’s just assume we have been. (I Am America, p. 183)
And what about general political commitment to liberal or conservative ideals? Again, you might be led into political skepticism. Who’s to say what the best ideals are? How can we provide evidence or facts to support something as amorphous and deep-seated as political ideals?112 One’s basic political framework is thought to provide some kind of knowledge about politics. For instance, the conservative framework of limited government interference and personal responsibility will probably tell you that government-sponsored healthcare systems are a bad idea. On the other hand, the liberal ideal of ensuring equal access to basic needs will tell you that some kind of government-sponsored healthcare might be a good idea, because everyone needs healthcare (or even has a right to healthcare) and we ought to help everyone get it.
Since our basic political framework generally purports to give us a means to knowing things about politics, a political skeptic might be inspired by the Indian skeptic Nagarjuna in the following way. We can’t establish our political framework (the means of knowing) without establishing that government-sponsored healthcare is good or bad (the things we know) and we can’t establish that government-sponsored healthcare is good or bad without first establishing our political framework. So it appears there is no way to really make sense of knowing whether government-sponsored healthcare programs are a good idea.
Truthiness can help! For Stephen, conservative ideals just feel right, which allows him to be fully committed to his ideals. He feels in his gut that a conservative outlook is the right one, without having to appeal to outside evidence or knowledge of any kind. Where “truth” fails to push us to political commitment, “truthiness” delivers commitment beyond the need for pesky things like facts and evidence.
It-Getting: The Truth about Truthiness
Is this Colbertian solution to the problem of skepticism and political commitment a good one for America and for democracy? Ultimately, no. Of course, this is precisely Stephen’s point. Through his brand of parody and satire, Stephen may be one of the greatest champions for the traditional values of truth and critical thinking on basic cable today. By relentlessly making fun of truthiness he can incite us to reflect on the direction of our culture, to question truthiness and those who wield it.
Truthiness is meant to answer political skepticism by giving us completely certain beliefs resting on the bedrock of our guts. However, Modern skeptic David Hume tells us that skepticism is unavoidable if you think about philosophical problems long enough. For Hume, skepticism is part of the human condition. Could political skepticism be the same? The kind of certainty we aim for in truthiness seems unobtainable, especially in complicated political matters. As I tell my philosophy students, one of the greatest lessons you learn in doing philosophy is that everything is more complicated than you think it is.113 Stephen teaches us a similar lesson about politics. Truthiness creates nothing but a veneer of false certainty. If you scratch the surface a bit, all the old complexities are revisited. Political skepticism remains.
But if we’re left with political skepticism are we then left with the political inaction and