Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [94]
The patterns of the opposing positions that emerge on these issues are so clear, predictable, and symmetrical (like dueling circumcisions), it’s tempting to conclude that the more sexually repressed persons and cultures are, the more likely they are to favor physical aggression as a way of solving conflicts, and vice versa. (Simple hippie party platform: can’t we all just get along—by having more sex?)
Clearly, however, there are many exceptions to these striking patterns. The Amish manage to combine a pacifist stance on violence with an extremely conservative view of sex and sexual liberation. In addition, as the sex scandals that have rocked the Republicans in recent years demonstrate, there are not a few hawkish conservatives who have had to defend not only Bush’s policies on war and torture but also their own family-values-flouting sexcapades. (Of course, Freud has taught us not to be shocked by such inconvenient, unorthodox libidinal spasms.) Colbert would remind us not to overlook (as opposed to looking over) as well those persons he deems the most vulnerable members of our society: the bikini-clad assassins who need their automatic weapons to protect themselves from being objectified.158
Still, despite these exceptions and the evident complexities to which they point, there’s surprising psychological depth behind the slogan: make love, not war.
Colbert Catharsis
What we make of our country’s recent levels of sexual repression and zeal for violent aggression might deeply influence our perspective on the emergence of Stephen Colbert. Is his rise a sign of cultural resurgence—a symptom of a return to health via the salve of therapeutic humor and ironic dissent? Or is it a sign of decadence, nihilism, and imminent apocalypse? (Or is it just an uncomfortably long cultural erection—one of those that lasts more than four hours? Better enjoy Stephen while he lasts.)
Suppose that Huffington, Moore, Stewart, and others in the blame-humans-first crowd are on to something. Stephen Colbert nightly articulates the pubescent fantasies and faith-based wet dreams of some of the most sexually repressed, irrational and blindly nationalistic elements of our culture. But he’s an ironic pubic Papa Bear. So his Peabody worthy performances, as Freud would tell us, can be profoundly therapeutic.
The Colbert Report is cathartic. By ironically play-acting both the role of the American Id and its fundamentalist Christian superego, Stephen Colbert helps us to cope with some of our worst hang-ups as well as defuse violent, uncivil tendencies through laughter. In turn, we’re better able to deal with some of our most troubling traits.
Many Americans are rightly horrified by the surge in meanspiritedness and aggression in our country’s policies and politics, especially since 9/11. The Bush administration cynically exploited our fears in order to justify a tragically stupid invasion of Iraq; a policy regarding torture that is grossly un-American and inhumane; warrantless invasions of our privacy; and the unethical suspension of habeas corpus corresponding to the shameful construction of military prisons at Guantanamo Bay.
At the same time, during every election year since 2000, Karl Rove and other Republicans have manipulated the homophobia and xenophobia of significant swaths of voters to gin up support for their candidates. To add insult to injury, they’ve also implied that American