Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [64]
Beyond its comedic value, the segment is also quite effective as parrhesiastic speech, and not just to the extent that it works as a critique of conservative “talking heads.” The WØRD segment is just as much a critique of the current role of TV in political dialogue. To see what we mean, consider that, for better or for worse, TV is where most of the public dialogue about American politics takes place. The news media’s presentation of political arguments is meant to supplant our own participation in such discussions. They carry on these discussions for our sake, and with the help of expert guests, data, polls, and staged arguments between representatives of different viewpoints. The result is a kind of play-argument where the critical political speech is acted out for us, leaving us the passive role of viewing the discussion.
Contrary to this kind of presentation, Colbert enters a critical dialogue with the news media itself by explicitly mimicking, and implicitly mocking, this form of presentation. Colbert tells us “this is what they say and think,” while the bullet points tell us “this is what they should not say or should not think.” To this extent, the segment models a critical form of dialogue by individuals who present different viewpoints to us, but the point is to call into question the language that is used to articulate and defend these viewpoints. The bullet points provide viewers with a critical sub-text that challenges what is being spoken. Thus, the satirical presentation of political dialogue in “The WØRD” segment in fact suggests the form of political speech we should strive for: active criticism of political viewpoints and the language used to articulate and defend them.
An Out of Control “Fact Insurgency”
The idea of truthiness is particularly relevant here since, all too often it seems, the goal of speakers in media and politics is to appear parrhesiastic, rather than actually to be so. As Colbert demonstrates time and again, truthiness often comes in the form of language designed to avoid critique by making it hard to deny, or even understand, the claims made by the speaker. Colbert recently exposed such a strategy in Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s attempts to separate himself from President Bush’s war doctrine, in spite of McCain’s ongoing public support for both Bush and the War in Iraq. Where President Bush has previously used words like “existential threat” to talk about international terrorism, McCain chooses the word “transcendental” to emphasize the importance of the conflict. Colbert analyzes this contrast of terminology in “The WØRD” segment (the bullet-point critique is emphasized in brackets).
Folks, language is very important in politics, particularly when it comes to war. [Weapons of mass description.] For years the Bush Administration used the phrase “war on terror” which was replaced with the phrase “the global war on terror.” [Bush loves nicknames.] Then it was “the global struggle against extremism,” then briefly it was “the long war” before they settled on the new name, “hey, maybe we should bomb Iraq.” [The “Maybe” proves they’re diplomats.]126
On McCain’s new word for describing the conflict, Colbert has this to say:
That’s right. The war is now ‘transcendental.’ [Transcends voter approval]. No surprise. After all, Toby Keith’s anti-terrorist lyric ‘We’ll put a boot up your ass. It’s the American Way’ originally appeared in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. (Episode 4081)
He goes on to show that this word makes little sense in the context, which suggests that it may have been chosen merely to sound impressive, or perhaps to make it impossible to pin down McCain’s actual view.
Does he mean “transcendent,” which according to Webster’s means “exceeding usual limits”? Because the war has certainly exceeded the time limit. [And the constitution] Or, is he intentionally using the word “transcendental,” which is defined by Webster’s as “of or relating to experience as determined by the mind’s makeup,