Colbert is something far more subtle than a fundamentalist, but on some level he means what he's saying, and is making fun of himself for meaning it by impersonating a fundamentalist's absurdly over-the-top way of saying it. No wonder Harris is baffled: it's impossible to tell where Colbert is really coming from. If you assumed he was mocking religion itself and therefore agreed with you, you'd fall into a trap.Harris is atheist Sam Harris, and you can watch Colbert's interview with him here. Enjoy all the perplexing subtleties!
April 28, 2006
"On some level he means what he's saying, and is making fun of himself for meaning it..."
Amba on religion and "The Colbert Report":
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I think Colbert is probably far more religious than we might think based on his very funny satire and the fact that he's a media personality. The best satirists are those who believe in what they're making fun of, because they know it best and they're making sport of the excesses of their beliefs. In this way, Colbert is the perfect guy to make fun of religion just as the folks behind LarkNews.com are perfect to make fun of conservatives and Bill Bryson to make fun of Americans.
Stephen Colbert is a riddle wrapped up in an enigma served on a bed of lettuce that speaks to you. Stephen Colbert is a bird chirping in an empty meadow with a song no one but you can hear. Comedy is a wreath of beautiful flowers that smell very, very bad.
Tom C: Read Amba's post and my old post that she talks about. Neither of us is saying he's a fundamentalist. The point is he is a serious Catholic.
Colbert comes from a large Catholic family that suffered the tragedy of the father and two siblings dying in an airplane accident. He went on to major in Philosophy at Northwestern later switching to acting--not comedy. Because of a series of fortuitous events he ended up doing comedy to support his family.
Here's the interview.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=5&cat=390
We just started TiVOing The Colbert Report a week or so ago, so I was fortunate enough to see the Harris interview. It was hysterical, and Colbert really did run rings around Harris. My take on the interview is that Colbert was able to dismantle Harris so thoroughly because Colbert really knows his stuff, and he believes it. It was a brilliant performance, because there was Colbert tearing down a topic that his liberal audience would normally eat up, and they were laughing and applauding Colbert's take-downs, not Harris's defenses. Colbert deftly uses humor to make his points. The audience laughs because of Colbert's persona, and the way he's presenting the ideas, but the way the dynamic flows, the audience is nevertheless with Colbert!
I wouldn't be so quick to label Colbert as a "liberal Christian." He is a devout Catholic, which is fundamentally (ha!) incompatible with a lot of liberal dogma.
Quxxo: never thought I'd hear you quoting (paraphrasing) Spock!
I thought the interview was great, but I don't think its fair to say that Colbert was attacking or dismantling or running rings around Harris any more than he does to any of his guests. His style is superquick and the way he disguises whether he's serious or tongue-in-cheek or both makes it hard for any interviewee to get his or her substantive points across. Although I like his style, I think being an interviewee could be excruciatingly frustrating. The most successful interviewees are ones that do not try to get any substantive point across and just go with the flow.
Even so, Colbert spent most of his energy making fun of things like the flawed circular logic of faith and the absurdity of citing the Bible as evidence of its own authenticity. I thought Harris and Colbert ended up on a similar page in their condemnation of the kind of faith that has led to the horrors outlined in Harris's book, from the Crusades to the Inquisition to modern Islamic terrorism. On the metaphysical question of whether believing in the something that came from nothing, Harris conceded that that kind of god was not the god Harris feared, but that it also wasn't the dominant kind of faith. The more interesting discussion would have been why each of them has looked at the something-from-nothing question and come to different conclusions, but they didn't get there.
As far as how liberal a Catholic Colbert is... He sat in for Jon Stewart on the Daily Show when Stewart's wife gave birth in 2004. Colbert got to interview the guest, Ralph Nader. At the end of the interview, Colbert with uncharacteristic frankness said that he didn't care who won the election, Kerry or Nader, as long as it wasn't Bush.
I'd also recommend Colbert's other principal work: Strangers with Candy.
Joe, I agree that Colbert's treatment of Harris was no different from the way he treats his other interview subjects. It was one of the first Colbert interviews I'd seen, though, and I was very impressed by his style. I still am!
I don't want to get into an extended discussion of Catholicism here, and whether Americans self-identifying as Catholics agree or disagree with the Church's doctrines. For the most part, American Catholics are poorly catechized and thus their opinions on subjects like papal infallibility are meaningless, because many of them don't know what they're talking about.
There's also a tremendous amount of confusion between what the Church advocates for individual's behavior and what the Church advocates for a nation's governmental policies. It is right and just for us, as individuals, to support charitable causes. There is no doctrine that says it is right and just for a government to take money from its citizens for the sole purpose of redistribution.
The fundamental incompatibility between Catholicism and liberalism concerns abortion. No Catholic in good standing can support abortion, which the Church identifies as intrinsically evil. I know many self-identified Catholics do support abortion rights and advocate for the continued legality and easy availabilty of abortions. That's something they will have to reconcile when they're judged.
Colbert is some kind of genius. I can see a generation of wickedly smart comedians coming after him. You'll never know when they mean it or they don't- you'll ride the cognitive dissonance like a surfer- you'll enjoy the joke and not need the punch line. Watching him I sometimes turn away the way a baby does when it has too much input and is overwhelmed by confusion.
Man that guy is good.
Apropos Stephen Colbert, here last night's interview with Bill Kristol in which Stephen slyly gives us a wink and a nod and shows us that he is really a neo-neo-con. If you listen closely, I think he gives all of us on Althouse another shout-out that only we will understand.
Warning to Marghlar, there is policy and politics in here, it may be a bit too much for you.
What part of "I don't want to have an extended discussion" do you guys not understand? Simply put: while the death penalty, the war in Iraq, and contraception are not approved by the Church, they are not in the same category of intrinsic evil as abortion.
Contraception is allowed by the Church, via so-called "natural family planning." The artificial contraception debate rages on among observant Catholics.
Scalia is Catholic. There are some issues (like abortion) which are non-negotiable, but many, many others fall well within the sphere of "formation of conscience": you have to make up your own mind about these things. That doesn't mean picking and choosing what you like or dislike, it means learning the law and its intent and then coming to your own decision on it.
As to the definition of Catholic, I'm sure there are many "cultural" Catholics who, by nature of their practices and beliefs, are out of communion with the Church. But it's not my job to tell them that. You can't really be Catholic if you don't follow the rules. (And nobody, but nobody, can perfectly know or follow all of them, that's not the issue.) Catholicism is very different from Judaism in that respect.
Marghlar,
One answer to your query is papal infallibility. If the pope says abortion is worse than capital punishment its because god himself thinks so. Period. And you best not question the pope. Well, you can question past popes who were often proven wrong, but not this one.
I don't think Colbert's all that. My categorical God apathy might get in the way of appreciating him as much as you all. (It gets in the way of appreciating a lot of things I guess.) As it is, I think he's much funnier delivering scripted material, and even better when the camera is close up on his face. He's got great facial expression.
Marghlar, the problem is that you are over-simplifying what the actual doctrine is, and it's too complicated (and I am too poor an apologist) to get into it here. You say that abortion was "only a venial sin" for some time; that's something I've never heard before, and I don't have time to research it now. I do know it's vastly inconsistent with current doctrine, which is that life begins at conception.
Joe, you're under the delusion, shared by many, that every utterance of the pope is infallible. The pope is infallible only when he speaks ex cathedra; see here for more information.
There are catechetical passages that speak in support of the death penalty and war. The criteria are not as narrow as you suppose, and again, the behavior of an individual is distinguished from the behavior and policies of a governmental body. At any rate, abortion is a special case because the victim is always wholly innocent.
Catholic are not compelled to call for legislation that supports Catholic doctrine. They are called upon, however, to not vote for laws that are clearly in opposition to Catholic teachings. There's a difference.
Marghlar, with the decision to order pizza for dinner, a little slice of time was freed up, and I looked into the abortion issue further. I think you're confusing the status of the sin of abortion with the effect of having performed an abortion. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, at one point the penalty for aborting a child after quickening was excommunication. At the time, excommunication wasn't imposed on those who aborted a child before quickening, but that doesn't mean they were not in a state of mortal sin. You don't automatically get excommunicated for committing a mortal sin.
The Catholic Church never taught that life began at quickening, according to the same article. Aristotle and other early philosopher/scientists may have promulgated that idea, but it was never espoused by the Church according to the sources I've read, including the article linked above, and this page of the Catechism, which also discusses war and the death penalty.
Jim, you may find this site interesting for a look at how some observant Catholics view the contraception debate. Again, it all goes back to the formation of conscience.
Marghlar, that is an interesting site you linked. It's hard for me to assess how the quoted passages relate to actual Church doctrine through the ages. I will certainly look into this issue further.
he knows his stuff and his faith is obvious, even in his devil's advocate/fun of fundamentalism persona.
go, Ace, go
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