Abstract
This essay offers an assessment of Colbert’s satire that situates his practice within the larger theory and history of the genre. My assertion is that satire problematizes notions of certainty, stable reality, and absolute truth. As such, satire enacts a postmodern agenda of freeplay and undecidability. However, many current media critics operate with a modernist view of the genre and of Colbert in particular. Such an approach to satire is inadequate and misconstrues the significance of the form as well as Colbert’s masterly use of it.
Stephen Colbert: Great Satirist, or Greatest Satirist Ever? I can’t prove it, but I can say it. Stephen Colbert
Mo or pomo satire?
In recent years, many critical studies have appeared on programs such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (Compton, 2011). Understandably, the focus of these analyses tends to be on current-day satiric practices within present-day social settings. Overall, satiric theory or the literary tradition of the genre is taken little into deliberation. The result, however, is some dated and perfunctory accounts of the genre. For example, Day (2011) writes brilliantly about the ‘engaged, improvisatory, and embodied’ qualities of what she terms ‘performative satire’ (13) in the parodic news shows, satiric documentaries, and media-savvy activism of the past two decades. She demonstrates convincingly the generally counter-hegemonic nature of this political dissent (186–187). When contrasting this dynamic new satire to its historical forerunners, though, she characterizes early modern satire as primarily a conservative fuddy-duddy guilty of ‘the shoring up of dominant norms’; she also reports that these older satirists ‘rarely critique the more crucial economic and political structures of their societies’ (11). Cleary, Day has never encountered the work of numerous early modern satirists such as Andrew Marvell, John Dryden, or Jonathan Swift. Day claims that ‘an extensive tradition of criticism’ (11) repeatedly asserts that earlier satire ‘is generally removed from the real machinations of the political world and thus has negligible political power’ (12). Of the five scholars she cites, however, only one is an early modernist, and only two write post-1980. Certainly not all media critics fall short when accounting for the genre of satire. 1 Nonetheless, a number of studies fall victim to what are effectively New Critical conceptions of satire as well as to an oddly essentialist approach to the genre. As a result, with regard to the satiric theory on offer in recent media studies, it is not always as sophisticated or as nuanced as it might be.
A particularly telling example of a modernist approach and mindset to contemporary satire is a 2009 article by Colletta (2009) on Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. In it, not only does Colletta labor under a narrow idea of satire; she appears as well to tumble into what might be called the Postmodern Slough of Despond. For a working definition of satire, Colletta draws on mid-20th-century literati such as Evelyn Waugh and M. H. Abrams in combination with reference works such as The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. The result is a nostalgic view of satire somehow functioning properly during the early Roman Empire and in 18th-century Europe when Truth was eternal, humans were Rational, and the satirist reliably could shame a reader into Correct Behavior (859–860). Teleology takes the lead when Colletta remarks: ‘Satire is therefore a hopeful genre; it suggests progress and the betterment of society, and it suggests that the arts can light the path of progress’ (860). At face value this evaluation is agreeable and not wholly inaccurate. However, much depends on one’s meaning of ‘progress.’ Here, we encounter Colletta’s disdain for the postmodern—or rather her conception of postmodernism. Because, as she complains, ‘[a]wareness of constructions has replaced awareness of meaning’ (856), Colletta equates postmodernism with nihilism. She assumes that the postmodern position endorses the abject absence of meaning and, as a result, a wry cynicism and disinterestedness from politics, social reality, and change (858). This ‘postmodern irony,’ as she terms it, has a devastating effect on her conception of satire; moreover, the slickness of television contributes greatly to satire’s decline. She declares: ‘With the spectacular power of television, the power and efficacy of traditional satire is diminished because meaningful political and moral oppositions collapse and are replaced by spectacle and competing opinions’ (866). For Colletta, then, so-called traditional satire shows best in humdrum print, deals only in non-competing opinions, and operates via modern irony, that is, a stable definition of Correct Behavior against which to lambaste fools and knaves. Without such absolute standards, she contends, meaningful satiric oppositions cannot happen. Unfortunately, under this essentialist definition of satire, Colbert is judged to be a leading contributor to postmodern ironic chaos. Without ‘any better standards’ to judge the opinions expressed on The Colbert Report (863), viewers are led, will-o’-the-wisp-like, headlong into the marshlands of incapacitating relativism. There, presumably, they are at a loss to understand, let alone to pursue, Colletta’s idea of ‘progress.’ She concludes her article by saying ‘there is good evidence to suggest that postmodernity has killed irony and satire’ (872).
The only thing that postmodernity has killed is, as Derrida states it, the ‘coherence in contradiction’ (2000: 495) that characterizes Colletta’s desire for a Transcendental Signified. That is, Colletta longs for a center to ‘traditional satire’ that never was there. Far from advocating No Meaning, postmodernism proposes many meaningS—an infinite amount, in fact, all of them based in contextuality, not perpetuity. What is more, just because humans continually concoct our reality doesn’t mean there aren’t better and worse concoctions of it on offer. Political engagement, typically in the form of the hegemonic struggle, is a conspicuous element of postmodern thought. Stephen Colbert, then, doesn’t fall short when it comes to the work of satire. Just the reverse. It is the ill-considered imposition of universalistic tenets on works of satire that leads to shortsighted theorizing about the form. There is no genre less suited to the New Critical fancy of a text having a coherent, indissoluble meaning. Everything about satire is local and up in the air. Therefore, contrary to Colletta’s statement that postmodernity has killed irony and satire, irony and satire are postmodernity, and they always have been. Satire, like the thinking of the Sophists, runs as a counter-discourse to Platonic thought in western culture. It partakes of and contributes to insights such as Nietzsche’s ‘Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions’ (1979: 84). It embraces Derrida’s ‘joyous affirmation of the freeplay of the world… without truth, without origin, offered to an active interpretation.’ For Derrida, this ‘Nietzschean affirmation’ of ‘the non-center’ indicates the activity of interpretation as a game played ‘without security’ (509) where language criticizes itself and structure is ever provisional. As meaning-making beings, we inevitably create a center, but another center is sure to come along to destroy that old machinery (500). With regard to satire, any ‘truth’ structured by a satirist comes with the knowledge that she is de-centering someone else’s ‘truth,’ and that her center, in turn, likely will be de-centered. Satire, then, embodies that ‘terrifying form of monstrosity’ that is Derrida’s concept of deconstruction (510). However, such relativity is never the kind of cynical meaninglessness Colletta dreads. There is always contextual meaning and social significance in play. 2 Stanley Fish reassures New Critics that since ‘interpreters act as extensions of an institutional community, solipsism and relativism are removed as fears because they are not possible modes of being’ (1980: 321). The same reassurance can be offered to those who fear the chaos of satire: impermanent certainty is always being negotiated. The critical task of the student of satire is not to lament a work falling short of an absent essence, but to evaluate its particular and vibrant presence.
The civil savagery of Stephen Colbert
As discussed in the Editorial to this collection, satire operates within a cultural context to enact a polemic mission. To accomplish its persuasive task of blame and praise, satire invades other genres, manipulates its narrative persona, specializes in exaggeration, and establishes an intense transactive relationship with its audience. 3 Beginning in the early modern era, western satire has become as well a frequent instrument of discipline within the mechanisms of the modern state as outlined by Foucault (2003). As such, the genre is used as a means to critique dominant political and social orthodoxies of the day. Today, this kind of political satire thrives around the globe in the new media and on television. Undeniably, Colbert is a leading practitioner. Should we heed Colletta’s warning against Colbert’s dangerous ‘postmodern irony’? Does he employ the spectacular power of television to topple meaningful political and moral debate, giving his viewers only a values-free jumble of flashy opinions? Or does the well-constructed attack—the civil savagery—of Colbert’s satire accomplish something else?
Clearly, The Colbert Report accomplishes something else.
Colbert’s dexterous invasion of genre and manipulation of persona constitute key strategies in his overall satiric goal: to lay bare the mendacities of the neoconservative social and neoliberal economic hegemony in the United States. Far from feeding audiences glitzy, empty viewpoints, Colbert’s persona as a conservative pundit is designed to deliver satiric barbs through urbane, thought-provoking, and multifaceted irony. 4 While Colbert’s character demands passive and non-participatory acceptance of his points of view, Colbert the satirist facilitates active and inventive formation of shared points of view. This cognitive difference should be taken as a key part of the polemic and represents, contrary to Colletta’s view, a better standard by which to come to a responsible understanding of the world. Actual right-wing pundits not only seem to regard, but seek to reduce their viewers into brainless reactionaries incapable of critical thought. Sensationalism, outrage, fear, and dualistic thinking are the constant feedstuff of the conservative media. Colbert’s satiric persona not only condemns this right-wing approach, but does so by enacting its reverse: cultivating acumen in viewers (see also Jones and Baym, 2010: 290–292). On The Colbert Report, critical thinking and mental dexterity are praised by way of praxis while prejudice and insularity are blamed by way of audience participation. If it is the job of Colbert the faux-pundit to bully viewers by feeling the news at them, it is the legerdemain of Colbert the comedian and actor to invite viewers to create the satire with him. Moreover, far from negating meaningful political and moral debate, Colbert’s satire works to re-establish those very things. Programming on FOX News—or, for that matter, on MSNBC—is no more legitimate than that of the fake news programs on Comedy Central. The difference between The O'Reilly Factor and The Colbert Report, though, is that the former bunks and the latter debunks. That is, ‘real’ news programs construct a case for a particular view of the world, while satiric news programs (The Daily Show, of course, being the other prominent example) work to expose the constructedness of so-called ‘authentic’ news. In fact, Colbert and Stewart work to expose the constructedness of all kinds of social and political points of view no matter their source. Such deconstruction undertaken for the explicit purpose of promoting better-informed and more intelligent debate seems a fundamentally ethical practice. 5
Colbert’s typical modus operandi for critiquing the dominant orthodoxy is to render transparent the contrived quality of any given manifesto. Normally, this procedure involves re-contextualizing the object of his attack. Since context gives rise to meaning, Colbert will displace the concept from the truth-system that supports it, thereby unmasking its basic absurdity. Colbert’s satire, then, is educative in at least two ways. One, he expands the set of circumstances within which we view matters, providing fresh perspective and additional information—usually that which his opponent strives to obscure. Two, along with augmenting the what of an opponent’s assertion, he exposes to view the how of that position as well. That is, Colbert demonstrates the rhetoric, if not bombast, involved in his opponent’s fabrication of ‘truth.’ Thus, fundamentally, what Colbert’s satire combats is bullshit as defined by Harry Frankfurt. According to Frankfurt, what the bullshitter hides is the fact that the truth-values of her statements are of no real concern to her; her intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it. Writes Frankfurt: ‘He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose’ (2005: 55). Colbert’s satire works as a corrective to such loose and deceptive handling of actual conditions, regularly confronting the most influential bullshit of the day. By doing so, he enacts the ancient Greek democratic ideal of parrhesia, free speech that is critical of the political orthodoxy (Tiboris and Schaff, 2009). Although himself politically left of center, Colbert does not use his satiric persona so much to promote a specific, alternative political stance as he does to advocate for a better way to arrive at a political stance. His emphasis is on the how more than the what. The how he recommends as a more reasonable way to formulate a worldview entails not only understanding more about the social reality surrounding controversial issues, but, even more important, being alert to the deceitful manipulation of logos, ethos, and pathos that so often drives the debate of hot-button issues. Don Waisanen stresses this point: ‘Colbert would have us be rhetoricians, always on the lookout for language’s complexities, the persuasive use of definitions to frame political agendas, and the ways in which high abstractions may be less than accurate in gauging social situations’ (2009: 130). What marks Colbert’s satire as particularly brilliant is that its primary tactic is to bullshit in order to expose bullshit. Colbert calls our attention to the enormities of political and corporate bullshit by employing the very techniques of political and corporate bullshit. Note Tiboris and Schaff: Colbert uses the language of media practitioners and politicians to subvert many of their core beliefs. … But viewers are in on the joke, which exposes such practices for what they are, and brings to light the ways that they undermine democratic values of free, open, and critical speech. (2009: 124)
Colbert’s satire requires us actively to analyze issues for ourselves in place of passively receiving our viewpoints from powerful political and corporate bullshitters. Rather than settling for contrived ‘truth,’ Colbert endorses what could be called situationally accurate circumstances as a way to navigate civic life. 6 Moreover, by making his performance an exercise in seeing through bullshit, Colbert makes the gnosis and the praxis of his satire the same.
Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow
Examples of Colbert taking on the dominant orthodoxy are, in effect, innumerable. By way of extended illustration, however, consider the Colbert Super PAC. Since March 2011, over 230 segments dealing wholly or partially with this Political Action Committee have aired on The Colbert Report. The core purpose of these performances, spread out over more than 80 separate episodes, is to explore arguably the central and most controversial aspect of the 2012 presidential election: the Citizens United ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court allowing unrestricted independent political expenditures by corporations and unions. Characteristically, Colbert’s satire edifies viewers on this crucial issue. Both factually and semiotically, his performance satire instructs the public on the intricacies of the law as well as how neoconservative and corporate power players are manipulating and spinning the law. 7 During the years that he’s been tracking this issue, Colbert has kept us abreast of key friction points: coordination between PACs and the candidates they support, attempts to keep secret or to force the revelation of the identities of PAC donors, the notion that corporations are people, and so forth. Needless to say, Colbert’s pedagogy has not been dry lecturing. He’s embarked on a wildly entertaining spate of hands-on learning wherein he serves as our proxy. As lawyer and former chairperson of the Federal Election Commission, Trevor Potter, personally guides Colbert through the process of establishing and managing a ‘non-connected’ PAC, we see directly into the byzantine workings of power in this country. For example, in the initial segment of the series, in just four-and-a-half minutes not only are viewers memorably brought up to speed on the basics of what a PAC is and does, but also are given a solid idea of how easily one can be used for dubious political practices. When Colbert discovers that no one ever has been sent to jail for breaking the law with a PAC, he quips with glee: ‘That’s my kind of law!’ (‘Colbert PAC – Trevor Potter,’ 2011). Along with taking us through each technicality of the procedure—filling out forms, going to a hearing before the FEC to obtain a media exemption for covering his PAC, setting up a shell corporation in Delaware named ‘Colbert Super PAC SHH Institute’ so that he may legally accept unlimited funds from anonymous donors, and all with trusty Trevor Potter by his side as actual legal counsel—Colbert engages as well in illuminating shenanigans with his PAC. He airs some political ads for Rick Perry during the Republican primaries (e.g., episode #07106 aired 11 August 2011). He attempts to become the official Super PAC for the Occupy Wall Street movement (episodes #08013/14 aired 31 Oct./1 Nov. 2011). When he tries to run in the South Carolina Republican primary, Colbert turns his PAC over to Jon Stewart, who immediately goes rogue with it, first by airing an attack ad against Romney (see especially ‘Colbert Super PAC – Mitt Romney Attack Ad,’ 2012) then an ad against Colbert himself (‘Troubled GOP Waters,’ 2012). Somehow Colbert convinces Herman Cain to show up at the College of Charleston for a political rally mocking the idea of corporations being people (episode #08048 aired 23 Jan. 2012). All of this satiric fare works to unmask the reckless folly of the Citizens United decision by means of perpetrating the very Super PAC havoc it unleashed.
The neocon/neoliberal bullshitter most in Colbert’s cross hairs is none other than Karl Rove, the mastermind behind the Bush II regime. Similar to his parodic adoration of O’Reilly, Colbert sardonically emulates the machinations of Rove as that notorious right-wing guru exploits the new fundraising system with his own Super PAC, American Crossroads. A single episode of The Colbert Report (#07124 aired 29 Sept. 2011) exemplifies Colbert’s satire operating in high gear on this topic. In an early segment of that show, Colbert reminds us that PACs are required to be transparent, that is, to reveal the names of their donors. While the Colbert Super PAC is doing well under this regulation with regard to individual donations, nonetheless Colbert laments the fact that Rove’s Super PAC is vastly outraising him. Colbert wonders how Rove manages it. At this point we are introduced to ‘Ham Rove, Political Strategist’ (a ham loaf wearing glasses representing, remarkably well, Rove) and the shadowy world of 501(c)(4)s. Through Ham Rove, Colbert reveals how the real Rove has set up a dodgy sister entity called Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) organization that, by law, ‘does not require donor disclosure.’ As a result of this loophole, in its first month of operation (June 2010), Crossroads GPS raised 5.1 million dollars. Declares Colbert: ‘Clearly, these (c)(4)s have created an unprecedented, unaccountable, untraceable cash tsunami that will infect every corner of the next election. And I feel like an idiot for not having one!’ To help him get one, on comes Trevor Potter, who has in his briefcase all the paperwork needed for Colbert to start his own 501(c)(4). In this segment of the program, Potter explains to Colbert how big corporations are reluctant to donate directly to PACs for fear of offending customers and shareholders with the political ilk of their giving. In other words, transparency is bad; big donors (whether corporations or individual billionaires) prefer anonymity. Potter then takes Colbert through the actual process of establishing his own ‘anonymous shell corporation’ in the state of Delaware, the same gap in the law through which Rove wriggled. Farcically, Colbert pulls out a gavel, calls himself to order as the sole member of this corporation’s Board of Directors, and signs the papers of incorporation. He also learns how loose and easy these (c)(4)s function as so-called campaign finance restrictions. For one thing, no financial information about one needs to be reported to the IRS until six months after the election, and even then no names of donors have to be supplied. For another thing: Colbert: Can I take this (c)(4) money and then donate it to my Super PAC? Potter: You can. [ooos from the audience.] Colbert: [smiling broadly] But wait, wait. Super PACs are transparent … Potter: Right, and … Colbert: … and the (c)(4) is secret. Potter: Um-hmm. Colbert: So I can take secret donations of my (c)(4) and give it to my supposedly transparent Super PAC. Potter: [nodding] And it will say ‘given by your (c)(4).’ Colbert: What is the difference between that and money laundering? [big laughs from audience] Potter: It’s hard to say. [bigger laughs from audience] Colbert: Well, Trevor, thank you so much for setting me up [cheers and applause] in this Brave New World!
Colbert begins by pointing out how, in 2011, Rove’s Super PAC received more than 90% of its money from just three billionaire donors. Armed now like ‘my friend, Karl Rove’ with his own scam (c)(4), Colbert introduces ‘The Donating Game,’ a parody of the old TV game show ‘The Dating Game’. Invading that genre, Colbert plays the contestant hopeful to select a billionaire to be a ‘sugar daddy’ for his PAC. Oscar-winning actor Kevin Kline plays the host of the game show, while actual billionaire Mark Cuban plays a potential donor for Colbert. The sketch effectively signals what a sleazy and irrational state of political affairs has come about as a result of the decision made by the five habitually conservative judges currently on the Supreme Court. In sum, this episode of The Colbert Report is a tour de force of satiric attack upon the dominant political orthodoxy of the day. Subsequent segments on The Colbert Report continue to shine a light on Rove’s campaign finance maneuverings. For instance, an attempt by Rove’s lawyers to intimidate Colbert for the ‘money laundering’ remark quoted above results in Colbert’s making a predictably insincere apology to Rove that is every bit as damaging as the original revelations (episode #08004 aired 6 Oct. 2011). A month later, likening Rove to ‘a Zen campaign master,’ Colbert explores the absurd dodge of ‘issue ads’ (an innovation invented by Nebraska Democrats, in fact) as a way for PACs to coordinate with candidates while not, according to legal technicalities, engaging in ‘coordinated communications’ with those candidates. With Trevor Potter’s help, Colbert files an official letter and submits a sample issue ad with the FEC in ‘support’ of Rove’s formal request for American Crossroads to be able to produce such ‘public notices’ (episode #08017 aired 7 Nov. 2011). Colbert also takes aim at Rove’s preposterous claim that fund-raising 501(c)(4)s such as Crossroads GPS operate, in fact, as ‘social welfare organizations’ along the lines of the NAACP (episode # 08079 aired 3 April 2012). Colbert blows away this smokescreen by showing how Rove’s real objective is to thwart developing efforts by state treasurers and the IRS to force (c)(4)s to name their donors. Rove’s Super PAC had given US$2.75 million to another organization dedicated aggressively to ‘toppling disclosure laws at the state level.’ Colbert summarizes the continuing campaign finance bullshit thus: ‘So, that’s Karl Rove giving anonymous political money to help keep political money anonymous’ (episode #08099 aired 8 May 2012).
Making audiences aware of the constructedness of culture in no way entails, as Colletta worries, Colbert’s satire abandoning meaningful political and moral oppositions. Just the reverse. Such satire gives viewers insight into the machinations of modern power.
You can’t handle the truthiness!
Colletta’s alarm, therefore, about ‘postmodern irony’ being the ruination of ‘traditional satire’ is patently contrary to the textual and contextual evidence at hand. It also indicates how media critics put satiric theory to use without a full picture of how satire functions. The genius of Colbert’s conception of Truthiness exists not in its obvious lampoon of those who think wishfully with their guts (that is, fools). Nor is it even that, with such inspired derisive notions as Truthiness, Wikiality, and Jacksquat, Colbert aptly mobilizes Frankfurt’s theories regarding Bullshit against those who employ it for their personal gain (knaves). As commendable as these two satiric strokes are, the real brilliance behind Colbert’s Truthiness is the even more complex and disturbing idea that its admonition suggests, namely, that all truth is truthy. No statement achieves (or deserves) the status of Ultimate Being. No matter how Universal-seeming, any verity is a contrivance and a construction fashioned from a particular set of circumstances. This realization gets to the material task of satire. Colbert does not engage in Truth Wars with Bill O’Reilly, Karl Rove, FOX News, or any other bullshitter he cares to take on. Colbert engages instead (as does Jon Stewart) in Epistemology Wars with his opponents. His purpose is not to replace a false Truth with a true Truth. Through the exercise of situationally accurate circumstances, Colbert aims to identify, dismantle, and replace a Worse (meaning ill-constructed) point of view with a Better (meaning well-constructed) point of view. Moreover, above and beyond whatever specific controversy is under consideration, Colbert’s satire also makes the across-the-board and down-to-earth recommendation that it’s best to formulate one’s viewpoints as reasonably, fairly, and well-informed as possible. This satiric discourse takes place in the full understanding that deconstruction and construction are in constant and cyclic freeplay.
Along with Colletta, some otherwise superb readers of Colbert have fallen victim to this essentialist approach to satire. Rather than being able to handle the Truthiness of satire, they would pull Colbert into the modernist camp. Specifically, Jeffrey Jones and Geoffrey Baym (2010) contend how ‘underlying the postmodern form’ of The Colbert Report ‘is a quite modernist agenda, a critique of news and an interrogation of political power that rests on a firm belief in fact, accountability, and reason in public discourse’ (281). They offer brilliant analyses of the irrationality of the far-right positions, even employing Foucault’s theory of a ‘regime of truth’ to demonstrate the ideological rather than factual basis of FOX News (285). They then show how Colbert (and Stewart) pokes holes in the spectacle of this ‘postmodern political television,’ undertaking ‘the modernist labor of “calling bullshit”’ on these neocon fabrications. Baym in particular draws on the thinking of ‘unabashed modernists’ such as Frankfurt and Habermas to insist on Colbert’s neo-modernism (287; see generally 285–88). In several other writings, Baym advocates hard this same idea. He maintains that Colbert’s ‘indulgence in the techniques of postmodern spectacle simultaneously functions as a critique of those techniques’ (2007: 374). Therefore, ‘Colbert’s postmodern style exists in ironic tension with its deeper and decidedly modernist agenda’ (2009: 141). In sum, according to Baym, Colbert’s overall project: ultimately rejects the postmodern logic of spectacle and simulacrum and the now-commonplace assumption that truth is relative and fact a product of power. As such, The Colbert Report is a neo-modern form of public affairs television, a new way of pursuing the old goal of public information and democratic accountability (2010: 126).
Even more than Colletta, Baym and Jones offer important observations about the workings of Colbert’s satire. The majority of their conclusions are spot on. Unfortunately, however, and all too much like Colletta, they operate as well with what appears to be a limited, if not negligent, comprehension of postmodernism. This lack diminishes their ability to assess satire.
First, to reiterate, postmodernism is not nihilism. One wonders how the concept of relativity becomes equated with the concept of meaningless; that’s like equating gluttony with starvation. Baym, though, seems unable or unwilling to differentiate between much and none. He remarks: ‘If bullshit is an effect of postmodernism, parody is a modernist textual device, one defined by its critical edge and its unyielding faith that beyond the mask, there is some kind of linguistic normality—that words can, and should, mean something’ (2009: 141). To address first the latter half of this statement (and in paraphrase of Stanley Fish): of course there’s always normative meaning to be had. Otherwise, the present essay would not be taking place. The postmodern project—like all communication—relies on normative meaning to assert its view of contextual, contrived, and contended Somethingness (as opposed to abject Nothingness). Words not only can, but always do, mean something. Signifiers pair with signifieds; elsewise they are grunts. Baym’s contrivance of a postmodern opponent who advocates for speaking-without-meaning, then, is Straw Man rhetoric. Meaning is not the concept at stake here; immutability of meaning is. The modernist would have us believe, when it comes to signification, our choice is between one and none. The postmodernist offers us, instead, a choice between one and many.
To disagree next with the first half of Baym’s statement, bullshit is by no means uniquely an effect of postmodernism, nor is parody solely a modernist textual device. These suggestions border on the absurd. To venture their converse, far more, and more dangerous, bullshit has been dreamed up by modernism (and its antecedent, monarchism) than any jargon-laden claptrap that postmodernism ever has devised. Universal Truth, after all, takes quite a commitment—not to mention police force. In the battle of Colbert versus FOX News, it’s the neoconservatives and neoliberals who are the modernists advocating for essentialism and absolutist standpoints. Clearly, they resort to rhetorical sleight-of-hand to promulgate their beliefs. 8 But to imagine O’Reilly as a postmodern relativist is ludicrous. As demonstrated above, Colbert’s parody of right-wing punditry blows holes in the Transcendental Signified of his adversaries. If Colbert offers a ‘truth’ in place of the modernist bullshit he demolishes, it’s the malleable and practical one of Truthiness. 9 Thus, it’s not FOX News using the techniques of postmodernism for postmodernist purposes and Colbert using postmodernist techniques for modernist purposes, as Baym asserts, but quite the opposite. Colbert opens up the field of freeplay, where FOX works constantly to delimit meaning to a one-and-only proposition.
Finally with regard to Baym’s notions of the postmodern condition, let’s get our existential circumstances straight. When arguing in favor of ‘a priori reality,’ Baym affirms triumphantly that, ‘the fundamental premise of journalism—and indeed scientific inquiry itself’ is ‘that reality exists independent of human perception and can be objectively assessed’ (2010: 138). Are we not already at a Truth impasse? How, exactly, are we to carry out this ‘objective’ assessment of that reality existing independent of our perception? The moment we apply human perception to it, that reality becomes our interpretation of that reality, and no longer the reality itself. Nietzsche doesn’t say that the universe isn’t out there; he just points out that, given what we are (basically, walking simulacrum machines), the closest we get is our sensory translation of it. To imagine we can do more is vanity; to count on any individual human to perceive reality accurately for the rest of us is despotism. The premise of worthwhile journalism and scientific inquiry, then, is similar to that of satire: to fling us headlong into the Big Debate that is our lot. Baym, on the other hand, as evidently a nostalgist for 20th-century high modernism, appears to be under the spell of a Transcendental Signified himself in the form of Walter Cronkite on the CBS Evening News and JFK in the White House. He would have Colbert’s satire laboring uniquely for that cause. Unmistakably, Truthiness is a difficult situationally accurate circumstance for people to accept. History is a chronicle of Truth-systems rising, competing, and falling. Satire is a cultural mechanism of that phenomenon, not a literary device miraculously exiting materiality to bring us Word from the spiritual and Timeless plane.
My two truthy assertions, then, are these. One, satire is an aggressively relativist form. Two, Colbert represents the current crown of satiric creation. By pretending so successfully to be a modern hegemonic bullshitter, Colbert unflinchingly lays bare for our consideration power used for modern knavery. If you’re disinclined to regard Colbert as the ‘greatest satirist ever,’ that’s fine. I’ll put you down for ‘great satirist.’