Frailty, thy Name is John Stewart!

So there's been a huge discussion (read: Flame war) over at Metafilter regarding an opinion article written in the Boston Globe by a Harvard grad. regarding John Stewart. This fellow is of the opinion that Stewart and the Daily Show, I suppose representing the spearhead of a greater trend towards lampooning politics as buffoonery and pure idiocy in any iteration, is dangerous to the future of progressive politics in America:

Stewart's daily dose of political parody characterized by asinine alliteration leads to a ''holier than art thou" attitude toward our national leaders. People who possess the wit, intelligence, and self-awareness of viewers of ''The Daily Show" would never choose to enter the political fray full of ''buffoons and idiots." Content to remain perched atop their Olympian ivory towers, these bright leaders head straight for the private sector....

Most important, this disturbing cultural phenomenon overwhelmingly affects potential leaders of the Democratic Party.

You'll find that in the first half of the argument a long and tedious section where our Harvardian commentator outlines a "fictional composite of a typical apostle of the Daily Show," and bemoans how his hipsterish (my term) irony and cynicism will lead him away from political or social activism. But the point is maid succinctly enough in those quotations, I believe

Now, the discussion is raging about whether Stewart does or does not represent some form of parodic commentary / whether he is actually raising people's political conciousness by showing the absurdity... (It's unsurprising to think that most of the people who read Metafilter are fans of the Daily Show, myself perhaps included at an (ironic) distance of course)
However, I think that a point which hasn't been pressed either in the article or the zealous defense of Dailyshowism is that it's an absurd form of Idealism which places Stewart as the cause of this disengagement and anti-politics. I think, irrespective of my own beliefs about the situation, we have to come to terms with the fact that Stewart is popular because of a preexisting condition in our (a)political life. What is causing this parody unto hatred? Is it cynicism, disenchantment? is the end of history truly here, dispelling any of the former gravity of politics?

Now, I do have my opinions on the matter (to be insulted separately from the questions above, please). I think on the one hand it is a problem of the past twenty to twenty-five years, which among other factors have witnessed:
The frustration of any sort of putative alternative to liberal democratic capitalism,
The weakening if not crippling of the welfare state and collective labor's power within Western nations, The capitulation or death of Social Democratic movements, etc.

I don't even necessarily think that all of these things were good ways to do politics or see political change, but what they did represent was an opening or allowance for a certain type of discussion or discourse which has evaporated since. The language of momentous change or difference has so evaporated in contemporary discussions in politics that they resemble Linear or Zargotron B more than political speech. Capitulation here has on the one hand been a ready-made source of cynicism and irony, and on the other has solidified a particular state/economic system as the state/economic system. I don't even have to believe that there's a better way out there to realize that nobody even asks the question anymore. So then in comes the Daily Show, merely playing nursemaid to a group of smart but totally disinterested youths. The Daily Show isn't hurting the future of the American left, there is no American left. Perhaps its only active function is to provide succour to our ennui, to validate our apathy and provide us with any number of reasons not to get involved (Not least of all is so that we don't end up skewered on the Daily Show).

As if to bolster the sinking feeling I get in the pit of my stomach and bring this rant to a catastrophic halt, another nearby Metafilter link points to a study coming out of Emory about our "Millenial" generation (a.k.a. 'Gen Y.,' 'e-generation,' blech), and the obiesant and accepting good boys and girls we are. Just a brief quote and I'm done:

Over the past year, Epstein has surveyed more than 800 students at Emory University and four other institutions, about half of whom are Millennials, and half GenXers. Among the most striking findings of her survey:

• Nearly 70% of Millennials agreed with the statement that “Authority figures should set and enforce rules” – compared to around 40% of GenXers.
• 60% of Millennials agreed with the statement, “I trust authority figures to act in my best interest.” Only 40% of GenXers agreed.
• Nearly 60% of Millennials said they “felt comfortable asking for special treatment,” while only 40% of GenXers felt that way.

*The author reserves all intellecual property rights regarding neologisms coined in this post, which include but are not limited to: Harvardian, Dailyshowism