A poll conducted last year by Time has revealed that The Daily Show's Jon Stewart is the most trusted news anchor in America. He beat Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, and Katie Couric. Walter Cronkite, having just entered his grave, must already be turning over in it. Stewart won with 44 percent of the vote. Brian Williams came in a distant second with 29 percent. See the results here.
Like many others of my generation, I enjoy The Daily Show. I find Jon Stewart to be intelligent and his irreverence is often refreshing, if occasionally too snarky or foul for my palate. Still, I wonder what it says about my generation when we vote someone like Stewart to be the most trusted voice in American news -- especially when The Daily Show makes no claim of being a reputable journalistic enterprise.
When Stewart appeared on CNN's Crossfire in 2004, an argument ensued with Tucker Carlson about The Daily Show's lack of journalistic rigor. Stewart responded, "I didn't realize that the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their queues on integrity. ... The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?"
Indeed -- what is wrong with us?
The popularity of The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and The Onion reveals a core value of my generation. We thrive on sarcasm. It is our native tongue. Listen to a group of under-40s engaging in casual conversation. It's nearly impossible for 30 seconds to elapse without a quip, a dig, or a dose of eye-rolling hyperbole. We especially like to cut down authorities -- as Jon Stewart has perfected with his witty jabs at the mainstream news media and government leaders.
Sarcasm and irreverence are so popular that government officials clamor to get on The Daily Show to be mocked. They think they'll be perceived as "good sports" for playing along and somehow win the elusive support of sarcasm-soaked 18- to 35-year-olds. (Silly politicians, has Rudy Giuliani's SNL appearance in drag taught you nothing?) But they're not alone. I have no quantifiable evidence, but my perception has been that more sarcasm is creeping into the church as well. I experience it more often at ministry conferences, in conversations with other church leaders, and without question on Christian blogs.
My concern is not political integrity, the erosion of journalism in favor of amusement, or even ministry. My question is spiritual. Where does this deep reservoir of sarcasm come from? Why does it mark my generation the way a strong work ethic once marked the Greatest Generation or the way free-thinking branded the Boomers?
Phil Vischer, the creator of VeggieTales, gave a speech at Yale in 2005 in which he unpacked the media values of our generation -- the slow descent from our parents' "dry, cocktail party wit of Johnny Carson" to the "sarcasm and twisted humor" of David Letterman, and the emergence of the bottom-feeder humor that is Beavis and Butt-head and South Park. In these shows, Vischer says, "we had found our voice. We were safe from the world, as long as everything was treated as a joke." He continues:
Some folks believe Vietnam was the source of America's modern cynicism. Others point to Watergate. But for me and for many others in my generation, the real root, I think, is much closer to home and much more personal. When we were very young, our parents broke their promises. Their promises to each other, and their promises to us. And millions of American kids in a very short period of time learned that the world isn't a safe place; that there isn't anyone who won't let you down; that their hearts were much too fragile to leave exposed. And sarcasm, as CS Lewis put it, "builds up around a man the finest armor-plating ... that I know."
I agree with Vischer. I think the sarcasm of my generation is rooted in anger and fear. It is a socially acceptable defense mechanism, a way to vent the mountain of anger and fear we feel in a dangerous world where even the structures ordained for our safety (family, church, government) have failed to keep their promises.
We are the first generation born after the passage of no-fault-divorce. We are the product of broken homes.
We are the first generation born after Vietnam and Watergate. We are the product of a broken government.
We are the first generation born in the age of consumer religion. We are the product of broken churches.
With nowhere to turn for safety, our fears ferment under the surface into anger. But this toxic brew cannot stay there. It must find a release. Some of us find very destructive ways to alleviate that pressure. The rest of us let it out by mocking things previous generations took seriously -- government, work, religion, family, relationships, leaders, and the future. We are a generation that believes nothing is sacred. And if nothing is sacred, everything becomes profane.
I've been much more aware of my own sarcasm lately. I've tried to keep it under control -- especially when preaching in my congregation. (Have you noticed the way sarcasm laces even the sermons of our generation?) And I'm trying to be more reflective about where it's coming from. Is it merely casual banter, or is there an angry truth, a hidden fear, behind that one-liner?
I don't want to be a killjoy. I don't believe all sarcasm is bad, and we even see prophets in the Hebrew Bible and apostles in the New Testament using the rhetorical device from time to time. But given the latent anger and fear in our culture, is more sarcasm really helpful in religious communities? Or should we be doing more to unearth the fears and angers of our generation so that sarcasm might be pulled from our souls, roots and all?
A heavy diet of sarcasm, whether on television, the web, or even in the church, may be what this generation is clamoring for, and it's not immoral, but it may also be robbing our affections for God. Rather then emulating the popularity of Jon Stewart, leaders within the church, as well as leaders in other religious communities, should take up their spiritual calling to guide souls toward love rather than just levity.
As preachers of the sacred truths, I hope more will put aside the impulse to be entertainers and heed the calling to nurture minds that dwell on "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is commendable" (Philippians 4:8).
As shepherds of God's flock, we who are leaders should lead the effort to drain the stagnant reservoir of fear and anger that is polluting our generation by starting with the swamp in our own souls.
Follow Skye Jethani on Twitter: www.twitter.com/skye_jethani
It is a product of that which exists around it.
It is a survival tactic to deal with that which we cannot control.
Most importantly, it is the method and the tool we most use to point out those who say one thing and do another.
I guess that's enough sarcasm for one day.
In the absence of value, wealth becomes all that matters. It's the difference between quality and quantity. A nihilistic world is one where everything is for sale. In fact, there is more available to us, but it does not get tv coverage or celebrity status. One must be a nihilist in order to be popular in a nihilistic world.
I love Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. I even got Colbert's book as a Christmas gift. I like them because they make the news funny. I think, if anything, religion and/or morality doesn't have much, if anything, to do with this. I think the reason for the seeming "upswing in sarcasm" probably comes, straight up, from the Information Age. We can turn on the television to 24 hour news networks to see what's going on all over the world. We can come on the Internet and see all the bad news we wouldn't otherwise be aware of. Interent culture, itself, is snarky.
When we are aware of all the bad things that go on in the world - the things that are far away as well as those that are close, there's a reaction: You either laugh or cry. Crying is too painful to do all the time, so bring on the sarcasm and snark!
I try to reign in actual rudeness (at least most of the time), but humor makes for a good coping mechanism.
I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
Fanatical religion driven to a certain point is almost as bad as none at all, but not quite.
- Will Rogers
“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.â€
-Edmond de Goncourt
Christians are like frogs holding a symposium round a swamp, debating which of them is most sinful.-- Celsus on Christians in the second century A.D.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal
The Institutional Church has killed only two kinds of people: Those who do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and those who do. --- Will Durant
cont. below
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. --Richard Burton
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. --Unknown
Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens. --Michel de Montaigne
All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. --Cathy Ladman
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Mr. Jethani, after looking at quotes from previous generations, even previous millennia, it would seem you give your generation FAR too much credit.
If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all humankind would quickly perish since they constantly pray for many evils to befall one another. - Epicurus
We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. --Jonathan Swift
You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. --Anne Lamott
The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself. --Richard Burton
Oh these foolish men! They could not create so much as a worm, but they create gods by the dozens. --Michel de Montaigne
All religions are the same: religion is basically guilt, with different holidays. --Cathy Ladman
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. --Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Methinks you give your generation FAR too much credit.
Thomas Jefferson:
Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.
What is it men cannot be made to believe!
Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.
Eric Hoffer:
To know a person's religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.
Florence King:
Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalism, with its born-again regression, its pink-and-gold concept of heaven, its literal-mindedness, its rambunctious good cheer ... its anti-intellectualism ... its puerile hymns ... and its faith-healing ... are made to order for King Kid America.
Henry Louis Mencken:
The fundamentalist mind, running in a single rut for fifty years, is now quite unable to comprehend dissent from its basic superstitions, or to grant any common honesty, or even any decency, to those who reject them.
Stephen Jay Gould:
The fundamentalists, by 'knowing' the answers before they start (examining evolution), and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science-or of any honest intellectual inquiry.â€