Jon Stewart: The New Public Intellectual

The term public intellectual carries a host of stereotypes, controversies, and political gusto. Defining what a true public intellectual is seems to vary extraordinarily throughout the political and social realm. With that said, there are a few commonalities within all of the definitions that seem to transcend even the most varying of opinions. The public intellectual seems to encompass two parts: the first being that the individual is an intellectual in their particular field, and the second is that the individual takes their opinions or views and applies them (although this application consists of varying outlets) to the mainstream media or public realm. However, this definition opens up debate for who actually fits into this category. Do true economists like Paul Krugman surpass intellectuals like Pope Benedict XVI because of their subject matter? What about someone like Sean Hannity, who provides political commentary (debatably) to millions of people? Does his place in the public sphere give him the influence and capability to “hang” with public intellectuals like Noam Chomsky? The quick answer for someone like Hannity is no, but the argument could be made for an intellectual like Jon Stewart.

Jon Stewart was born on November 28, 1962, in New York City. He grew up in New York and attended Williams and Mary College in Virginia. After graduating in 1984 with a degree in psychology, he moved back to New York, where he began doing stand up comedy in small clubs while working various odd jobs. Finally, he caught a break and beginning writing for small comedy shows. In, 1991 he co-hosted a show on MTV, which led to his first show called the The Jon Stewart Show. The show had instant success and led him into hosting other shows and becoming good friends with David Letterman. His exposure on Letterman’s affiliate shows led him to take over the hosting job of The Daily Show on Comedy Central in 1999. Since that point, Stewart has won 16 Emmy Awards and has been nominated 22 times.

Although the last statistic, 16 Emmy’s and 22 nominations, may describe his success, it does not even scratch the surface of the influence and popularity that Jon Stewart has been able to garner within the sphere of American media. The Daily Show is a satirical news show that makes comments on America’s political landscape and media network. Every day, The Daily Show reports on the most current news information and makes fun of the politicians and news anchors that analyze these information and events. However, what truly separates Jon Stewart from the run of the mill political satirist is his ability to disregard partisan politics and make pointed critiques of America’s overall political system. Stewart makes jokes about both the left and the right side of the aisle. By calling out politicians and news commentators about their ridiculous behavior and comments, Stewart has been able to create a culture of viewers who are asking questions about who is really representing them and where they are getting their news.

But why, even with all of this, should Jon Stewart be considered a public intellectual? After all, his show is, a comedy show. He is a political satirist who doesn’t truly report the news and only critiques those who are in power or reporting. The old clichés of the public intellectual as a college professor who speaks about his work, or the humanitarian who analyzes world trends, do not fit the New York Jew that makes fun of senators and the White House’s recent foreign policy changes. It is exactly this fact, his unique ability to separate himself from all others in his field and call out those who need to be called out, that makes Jon Stewart a true public intellectual. The public intellectual is both an intellectual and an artist; someone who is a professional and expert in their field and who brings their ideas to the mainstream audience. Jon Stewart encompasses the “artist” portion of this idea and does it through intellectual comments.

Another area in which Jon Stewart fortifies his position as a public intellectual is in his work outside of The Daily Show. The common misconception of this political satirist is that he does not do any other work outside of his show and truly does not intellectually analyze his trade, politics. However, Stewart has organized a political rally, written three books, and appears on political talk shows regularly to voice his opinion. For starters, “The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear,” which he organized and co-hosted with his good friend, a political satirist, Stephen Colbert, attracted over 215,000 viewers to the National mall in Washington D.C. At the end of the rally, Jon Stewart delivered a speech, “A Moment of Sincerity,” in which he commented on the current state of America and the media’s role in fixing our problems. He says it best:

I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate--just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe not more. The press is our immune system. If we overreact to everything we actually get sicker.

It is speeches and comments and opinions and criticisms like this that have made Jon Stewart a public intellectual. The problem, as he argues, is not the right or the left side, and it is not one news station over another. The true problem is the entire system that has run astray. Mainstream media has constantly created rifts and panic within America and that is where Jon Stewart has taken up his cause. He is the leading commentator on satirical criticism of mainstream politics and has managed to create such a following that he ranked number four on a list of Journalists that Americans most admired (Journalism.org , 2008).

With all of this support for a comedian as a public intellectual, it begs the question, could the decline of the public intellectual be a true issue? Has society been so far deteriorated, has intellectual apathy with in America reached its brink? For analysts, pundits and intellectuals of the past, having someone like Jon Stewart considered a public intellectual could be viewed as the final straw that will break the intellectual systems back. However, it is exactly this archaic view of the public intellectual that has driven pundits to worry about the fragile and declining state of the beloved public intellectual. Stephen Mack, a Professor at the University of Southern California, comments on this decline in his essay, “The Decline of the Public Intellectual,” by pointing out that the past elitist view of the public intellectual is running astray from the true meaning the term. He comments, “…our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public intellectual is—and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title. Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do, irrespective of who happens to be doing it” (Mack). Mack makes the bold claim to forget who is writing the work and take the work for what it is worth. Figures like Jon Stewart, who might not fit the prototypical stereotype of a public intellectual, have their own unique way of commenting on society. This does not mean by any stretch that the public intellectual is on the decline. If anything, the stereotype of the public intellectual is changing.

Although the political elites and intellectual aristocrats might not agree or want to admit that the landscape for public discourse is changing, people like Jon Stewart make avoiding this truth nearly impossible. Mack comments on another point regarding the public intellectual’s role to criticize. After citing the work of Jean Bethke Elshtain, Mack writes:

Elshtain’s point is that the public intellectual function is criticism. And if intellectuals are in a better position to perform that function it’s not because they are uniquely blessed with wisdom—and it’s certainly not because they are uniquely equipped to wield social or political power. It is only because learning the processes of criticism and practicing them with some regularity are requisites for intellectual employment. It’s what we do at our day jobs.

What better way to describe what Jon Stewart does at his “day job” than criticize? As Mack asserts, it is the public intellectual’s job to criticize and analyze what is happening. It is what separates the private intellectual from the public one.

Jon Stewart has propelled himself from a political satirist and host to an influential public intellectual. His ability to sift through all of the deception, spin and party politics that has consumed the political commentary within mainstream media and criticize how the system is destroying itself has enabled him to make the jump. Consequently, it is this zealous pursuit of reform and truth that has given him so much success and solidified his position as a powerful and influential public intellectual of today.