Satire in Time of Oppression

So Colbert’s gotten fired. And for all the talk about how it was a “financial decision,” his was the highest-rated late night talk show. If it’s to clear the way for their merger, that’s caving to an oppressive government. If it’s for pretty much any reason, it goes back to caving to an oppressive government. Colbert is a symbol of resistance to a lot of people, because he has stood up and said what he thought for decades now. Remember the look on Bush the Younger’s face when Colbert said what he thought in front of his face. I don’t know if he originated the “reality has a well-known liberal bias” quote, but he definitely said it at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Yes, we read “A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick” when I was in college. And, yes, we had a person who believed that Jonathan Swift was serious in his suggestion that poor Irish babies be sold to rich English people as food. That’s why understanding satire is hugely important. You need to know the circumstances in which he wrote the work. Swift was himself Anglo-Irish and well acquainted with both the poverty of Ireland and the drive to dehumanize the Irish by the English elite, and he wasn’t even writing during the Famine.

One of the longest-standing purposes of satire is to bring home the vulnerability of the arguments of the powerful. Yes, a lot of it is based on the slippery slope fallacy, but it exists to point out that same arguments currently being used to defend one thing could be used to defend thing that people wouldn’t support. Someone needs to stand up and point out when the emperor has no clothes—but someone likewise needs to stand up and point out when the emperor is clothing his nakedness by stealing yours. Or even just point out that the emperor has clothes, they’re tacky, and he needs to stop talking about how great his taste is.

Whether you agree with Colbert in what he says or not, this is a time to be worried. If CBS will cave to an oppressive government and fire one of their best-loved figures, what else will they do? How can you trust their news reporting now if they’ve shown they’re scared enough to sacrifice Stephen Colbert? And if CBS will do it, what of the other networks? And we can’t rely on PBS, because their funding has been cut. If you can afford to be a Viewer Like You, now is the time. PBS needs you.

I grew up on satire. I read the political cartoons of Paul Conrad since I was too young to understand them. I watched D.C. Follies and Mark Russell specials. The Daily Show really came into its own right about the time I was graduating from college—I was in the throes of job-hunting while Jon was talking about having been able to see the World Trade Center from his apartment. I remember the days of “more Americans get their news from The Daily Show than probably should.” I remember when The Colbert Report debuted. There has never been a time in my life when satire wasn’t accepted as part of life. Until now.