Walter Berglund, the frustrated environmentalist in Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom, captures America today when his anger finally erupts: "This fragmentation . . . it's the same problem everywhere. It's like the internet, or cable TV--there's never any center, there's no communal agreement, there's just a trillion little bits of distracting noise. We can never sit down and have any kind of sustained conversation . . . All the real things, the authentic things, the honest things are dying off. Intellectually and culturally, we just bounce around like random billiard balls, reacting to the latest random stimuli."
How depressing, and how true. Examples of distracting noise abound--most recently in the mid-term elections, awash with dishonesty and inanity.
Enter Jon Stewart, comedian and host of The Daily Show. If you missed his interview with Rachel Maddow, watch it. Finally, two people in sustained conversation.
Stewart gives me hope. He exposes the noise of round-the-clock cable news for what it is: divisive and polarizing and distracting. He calls out red and blue activists alike for failing to tackle corruption and dishonesty. And he does so with humor and self awareness.
Jon Stewart for president? Not yet. But a lot of people producing politics and news could learn from him. He understands and articulates better than most the direction we need to go.
Take heed, all of us, of the comedian in our midst. He's a gem of a court jester, and we'd do well not just to laugh, but also to listen.
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