Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction: From Wiley-Blackwell’s World Philosophy Headquarters in Malden 1

Segment 1 Headlines: Faux News Is Good News 5

1 Rallying Against the Conflictinator: Jon Stewart, Neil Postman, and Entertainment Bias 7
Gerald J. Erion

2 The Fake, the False, and the Fictional: The Daily Show as News Source 23
Michael Gettings

3 The Daily Show: An Ethos for the Fifth Estate 38
Rachael Sotos

4 Seriously Funny: Mockery as a Political Weapon 56
Greg Littmann

5 Keeping It (Hyper) Real: Anchoring in the Age of Fake News 69
Kellie Bean

Segment 2 Live Report: Jon Stewart (Not Mill) as Philosopher, Sort of 83

6 Jon Stewart: The New and Improved Public Intellectual 85
Terrance MacMullan

7 Stewart and Socrates: Speaking Truth to Power 102
Judith Barad

8 Jon the Cynic: Dog Philosophy 101 114
Alejandro Bárcenas

9 “Jews! Camera 3”: How Jon Stewart Echoes Martin Buber 125
Joseph A. Edelheit

Segment 3 Field Report: Politics and Critical Thinking 137

10 More Bullshit: Political Spin and the PR-ization of Media 139
Kimberly Blessing and Joseph Marren

11 The Senior Black Correspondent: Saying What Needs to Be Said 155
John Scott Gray

12 The Daily Show’s Exposé of Political Rhetoric 167
Liam P. Dempsey

13 The Daily Show Way: Critical Thinking, Civic Discourse, and Postmodern Consciousness 181
Roben Torosyan

Segment 4 Interview: Religion and Culture 197

14 GOP Almighty: When God Tells Me (and My Opponents) to Run for President 199
Roberto Sirvent and Neil Baker

15 Profaning the Sacred: The Challenge of Religious Diversity in “This Week in God” 211
Matthew S. LoPresti

16 Jon Stewart and the Fictional War on Christmas 231
David Kyle Johnson

17 Evolution, Schmevolution: Jon Stewart and the Culture Wars 247
Massimo Pigliucci

Segment 5 Your Moment of Zen: Beyond The Daily Show 265

18 America (The Book): Textbook Parody and Democratic Theory 267
Steve Vanderheiden

19 A Tea Party for Me the People: The Living Revolution Meets the Originalists 281
Rachael Sotos

20 Neologization à la Stewart and Colbert 298
Jason Holt

21 Irrationality and “Gut” Reasoning: Two Kinds of Truthiness 309
Amber L. Griffioen

22 Thank God It’s Stephen Colbert! The Rally to Restore Irony on The Colbert Report 326
Kevin S. Decker

Senior Philosophical Correspondents 341

Index 348

About the Author

Jason Holt is Associate Professor at Acadia University.He is author of Blindsight and the Nature ofConsciousness, co-author of Flexibility: A ConciseGuide, and editor of The Daily Show and Philosophy and aforthcoming anthology in philosophy of sport. William Irwin is Professor of Philosophy at King sCollege. He originated the philosophy and popular culture genre ofbooks as coeditor of the bestselling The Simpsons andPhilosophy and has overseen recent titles including Supermanand Philosophy, Black Sabbath and Philosophy, andSpider-Man and Philosophy.