Words and Pictures
One thing that occurs to me about this cartoon spat…is that I’ve never actually much liked political cartoons, and this underlines why. I suppose, if I’m going to be completely honest (and I suppose I have to be, don’t I, since I’m always yapping about it), I have to admit that in this sense I may be able to see some point in what the “no need to be offensive” crowd are saying. Only some, mind you, and without all their horrible pious drivel about religious beliefs. I like some political cartoons, the kind that rely on extended strips with plenty of words, like Garry Trudeau’s or Jules Feiffer’s or Marjane Satrapi’s. But the one-panel ones that rely heavily on facial caricature? Not so much. I’ve been pondering this a little, and realizing that’s not particularly surprising. It’s like the difference between someone disagreeing with you by making faces and talking in a silly voice and jumping around, and disagreeing with you by discussing the subject at issue in calm, reasoned language. The first is pretty much always a lot more irritating than the second, and for pretty obvious reasons – the first is just about making fun of you, without properly saying why. Just grimacing and saying ‘Nyah nyah, yer mother wears army boots and you smell bad’ isn’t really instructive, whereas the second approach gets to what it is that is at issue. The second approach is explicit, while the first one is not. Cartoons are all about synechdoche, and synechdoche is fine for some purposes, but for substantive disagreement, it probably isn’t. So the people who talk about caricatures of Jews have a point – caricatures aren’t about reasons, they’re just about ‘we hate you you’re ugly’. That’s not an argument.
So…I think Islam ought to be criticised and reasoned with up one side and down the other, without cease, by as many people as possible – but, for preference, in language, not in mocking pictures.
Which means, I’ve realized with some qualms, that I’m sort of arguing that straightforward rational discussion is better for this kind of thing than satire or ‘art’. I sort of hate to say that! And yet…I think it’s true. The trouble with art is that it can’t explain itself, it can’t reply, its consumers can’t reply to it – it’s just there, given. And it usually doesn’t explain itself in the first place – that’s rather the point of its being art as opposed to an article. Art just isn’t particularly good at making argumentative points; that’s not what it does best, or well. The very ambiguity and room for interpretation that make it art make it also bad at being explicit. It’s extremely hard to argue with the non-explicit. Cartoons don’t really have propositional content. The one with the bomb in the turban, for example – that could mean several things.
Make of that what you will.
Reminds me of Dirac’s satement “In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it’s the exact opposite.”
There really is a lot to be said for being understood correctly. And for using the right tools for the particular job.
Interesting thing I didn’t know before: apparently the publication of these cartoons was a test:
“Last September the newspaper asked twelve cartoonists to draw the pictures to test whether there was freedom of expression in Denmark after a Danish author had complained that no-one was willing to illustrate his Muhammad book. “
(http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/540)
The test results are in: freedom of expression in Denmark (and the U.K and the U.S.) does not include the freedom to offend the faithful. Those who do so shall be fired from their jobs, forced to issue apologies, and have to live under threat of being killed by the defenders of the faith.
There is more to be said for recognising that one’s preferred tool and mode are
not the only ones.
You may not like image and affect rather than text and reason, but that does not make this any less a matter of free speech. And it is highly debatable whether an image can be any more ambiguous than a text. But it is not debatable that once you start making exceptions to freedom of expression based on your own personal taste, you are that little bit closer to someone else making an exception for you as well.
They came for the cartoonists. But I was not a cartoonist…
I’ve got to plug my favourite comic here! The weekly Tom the Dancing Bug is consistently on the mark.
“You may not like image and affect rather than text and reason, but that does not make this any less a matter of free speech.”
No, of course it doesn’t, and I’m not saying it does. Though I can see that it might look as if I am! I don’t mean to be doing just what I’ve been railing at Jack Straw and co for doing – saying Yers free speech is good but don’t do it. No. I’m not saying don’t do it, and I’m certainly not saying ‘be extra extra careful about offending people’s religious beliefs’.
What am I saying then? Just making an observation, really.
Or to put it another way, I’m just saying what I said: that I think criticism via language is preferable to criticism via pictures – and nothing more. I’m certainly not advocating enforcement of my preference. (And I don’t have the power to enforce my preferences that Jack Straw and the Pope do.)
I tend to agree with you but there are two issues you haven’t (I think) addressed:
1. Even if we all agree that such cartoons are stupid and offensive, how would we stop them? i.e. how do you draw the line between an stupidly silly (and offensive) cartoon and a cooly rational (but still offensive) paragraph? It seems to me that while the publication of the cartoons was stupid, that’s what we have free speech for: to allow even fools to have their say.
2. What do we (the West) do now? The only thing which makes sense is that dumb verbalism of “I am sorry that what I said was hurtful” with the addition of “But you have to understand that someone is going to say it again and we won’t do a thing about it.”
1. I’m not, not, not interested in stopping them. On the contrary. And of course that’s what we have free speech for.
2. I don’t even think we should say the ‘sorry it was hurtful’ thing – in fact I think we should not, and the more people try to extort apologies, the more I think we shouldn’t.
So you were simply indicating a personal preference with no policy implications?
How unusual.
Perhaps the problem is that they just aren’t funny (except the stick-man/publicity stunt one, I like that), and aren’t really making much of a point.
Some political cartoons can be quite apposite.
And btw, what’s the big deal about acknowledging that many Muslims are upset? They are. So noticing it doesn’t really give anything away especially if one also explains to them that in fact they will probably hear more and that there is little to be done except for them to provide no more provocations in the form of hijacking planes, bombing trains etc etc
But perhaps we have different perceptions of the seriousness of this situation. My own sense is that this cartoon thing can easily spin out of control. Only time and demography will change the Islamic world and that will take decades at best. So we have to face the development of some sort of containment policy to keep the nuts at bay for the interim (while supporting the minisule progressive elements).
Needless provocations such as the Danish publication don’t help matters as the Islamo Fascists are not capable (at a mass level at this stage in their social evolution) of understanding freedom of speech, except their own. So we basically have to treat them as children having a tantrum. Does that seem too harsh? Or patronizing? I don’t mean it to be so. But the Muslim world does indeed seem to be unable to handle any criticism and reacts in the most infantile manner.
So that said, one does sometimes have to adjust one’s actions when dealing with children. Precisely how we in the West should be doing so I don’t know though I imagine it will involve some sort of ‘tough love shock therapy.’
That doesn’t mean that I don’t support the Danes; I do. I was just in the supermarket looking for some Danish bacon and beer (alas! I couldn’t find any so I will stop at a bakery and have a “Danish” in solidarity.) But I am somewhat at a loss to know how we should proceed. Forthrightly, of course. But cooly as well. And I am not quite sure what that means though perhaps the cartoons are ultimately part of a ‘tough love shock therapy.’
For my money, it’s fine to make fun of religion (or political ideology, or any other set of ideas) all you want, however you want. But I still find most of these cartoons distasteful (at best) because they exploit and target bigoted stereotypes – an attack on people, not ideas.
Throughout most of Europe – I don’t know much about the situation in Denmark specifically, but probably there as well to some degree – dark-skinned immigrants from many nations (and not necessarily just Muslims or people from Muslim-majority countries) have been subject both to overt racism and to perpetual socio-economic second-class citizenship. The representations of Muhammed in these cartoons are, for the most part, variations on Standard Hate-Filled Bug-Eyed Muslim Terrorist Fanatic Arab Type 1-A. I couldn’t care less that the cartoons offend religious sensibilities, but I do care that they exploit stereotyped views of an oppressed minority population in Europe. I find that repellent in the same way (and for the same reasons) that I would find a U.S. political cartoon depicting racial/ethnic stereotypes of African American “welfare queens” or some such to be repellent. I’m fine with attacks on ideas, but I’m appalled by attacks on groups of people – especially attacks on people who already occupy the bottom of the prevailing socio-economic order.
Mind you, that is not a reason for censorship. It may be a reason for an apology, but the apology shouldn’t be for the violation of someone’s religious sensibilities. The apology should be for stereotyping and de-humanizing people, not for offending their religious beliefs.
I have no empathy for and make no common cause with the European Muslims who are enraged by the insult to their faith, and are rioting and protesting and all that. But I do wonder whether the anger of immigrants in Europe has as much or more to do with perpetual second-class citizenship than with fundamentalist Islam.
True, what G said. Irfan Khawaja talked about this at HNN the other day. But most of the discussion has been conducted purely in terms of religion and offense to beliefs.
“And btw, what’s the big deal about acknowledging that many Muslims are upset? They are.”
What big deal? You said The only thing which makes sense is that dumb verbalism of “I am sorry that what I said was hurtful” – which is more than acknowledging that many Muslims are upset. Acknowledging that would be “many Muslims are upset.”
It’s hard to see how an apology can avoid endorsing the idea that religious beliefs are off limits.
Considering how ‘transgressive’ we can be about toothless religions containing very few head-chopping killers, it is interesting to decode the ambivalence in discussions of this issue.
On the one hand, its hard to transfer the blame to Christian fundamentalists or Bush, so its not very interesting for the rabid left. Then, it has the minefield of possible charges of racism etc for the presumably large number of genuinely liberal people in the West, should they defend their own freedom. Thirdly, refusing to accept violent threats might be construed as willingness to provoke violence and for the genuinely liberal that would be difficult to do.
I think the original publishers have created a cartoon out of real life which is more challenging than most political cartoonists can capture.
“It’s hard to see how an apology can avoid endorsing the idea that religious beliefs are off limits.”
I don’t see the issue. I am not suggesting an apology for free speech. I am merely suggesting our acknowledgment that their feelings are injured.
Here it is:
Combine
1. A “Non-apology apology” — e.g. “I am sorry that you feel that way.” or “It’s too bad that you are upset.” — which takes no responsibilty and offers no apology but acknowledges their injured feelings
with
2. An explanation of free speech and a statement that there will likely be other such “offensive” statements in the future, as that is the nature of a free society so they should get used to it as it will probably happen again.
ChrisPer: Maybe I’m just missing the point of your post, but I don’t understand what exactly you think is so cartoonish here.
One need not belong to the rabid left to loathe George W. Bush or Christian fundamentalists (or fundamentalists of any religion). Indeed, one need only pay attention to what they do and say to be appalled. Granted, one would have to be pretty bent to blame them in any way for this Muhammed cartoon snafu. But you didn’t just say bent or illogical or silly, you said “rabid left,” which implies that you think there are lots of people out there who go around blaming things on the American far right for which they bear no responsibility. I haven’t actually seen very much of that. Mostly, I’ve read and heard people holding the Christian Right (and those who pander to them for votes) accountable for their actual ideas and actions – among which there are more than enough immoralities and stupidities to keep anyone busy indefinitely. So who exactly is this rabid left? And what do they have to do with the cartoon situation? Or was that just a weirdly aimed cheap shot?
And it really isn’t that hard to deplore bigotry and defend free speech at one and the same time. I just did it in only a few hundred words, and so have many other “genuine liberals” out there. The problem is that there are so many far-from-genuine liberals out there; so many people who call themselves liberal or progressive and then take positions and support policies that undercut the very foundations of a free secular society – such as the current leaders of the Labor Party in the UK.
And I don’t see the why of your third point at all. You seem to be taking positions to be contrary or at odds which simply are not. Just as one can deplore the racism of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons without thereby believing or endorsing the position that they should have been censored or that people’s religious ideas need special protection of any kind, one can deplore the willful provocation of the cartoons without shifting the blame for the violence from the rioters to the paper. Either the paper editors knew that publishing the cartoons would lead to rioting and violence, or they are incredibly stupid and short-sighted – and they are blameworthy either way. But that in no way implies that the Islamic fundamentalist imams and media are somehow blameless for willfully stirring up the violent response. Nor does it imply that the people in the streets engaging in actual violence are somehow blameless. There is no contradiction in deploring and rejecting the violence while simultaneously holding the paper responsible for willfully or stupidly inciting that violence.
Maybe some pseudo-liberals have required some “decoding” as you say, but in general I think it’s the situation itself that’s ambivalent and complicated, not the political positions of those commenting on it. Free speech, racial/cultural bigotry and religious fanaticism make an ugly stew. No doubt there are lots of people and ideas worthy of disdain and mockery in this situation. But I don’t see why you think the need for somewhat nuanced opinions about this complicated situation deserves ridicule.
Well, no, not really OB. You saw Dawkins trying the rational argument and getting nowhere. How many times have you come up against those who just will not, cannot see, no matter how much evidence you pile up in their laps?
One of the reasons I gave up writing a ‘serious’ blog and turned to comedy, satire, silliness, the surreal, the word-wanking, was because of the nice feeling I got when I stopped bagging my head against the all too solid rock of this world’s stupidity. Sometimes you need the crude, the caricature, the gross, the offensive, the whop around the head with the satire stick, just to get people to sit up and take notice.
Sometimes it takes the shock, as Duchamp intended with his ‘Fountain’ (but the constant iterations on the same theme by those who followed soon became very tedious – it’s true).
As for art making a good argument, how long into any discussion of totalitarianism do you have to meander before someone brings up Orwell’s 1984? I seem to remember someone saying something about art (or was it humour?) being like the sand against the skin, rubbing away, creating an itch that eventually you just have to scratch.
What has interested me in this cartoon fiasco has been the almost constant use of Freud’s assertion that humour is a form of sublimated aggression – as with most of Freud, it can be of course, but that is not the totality, or even the majority of it.
You are going to get – as with Swift’s A Modest Proposal many – perhaps a majority that will see it as an attack on their holiest of holy, a case of laugh and the whole world firebombs your embassy. But you have to hope that a few will stop, pause and ponder ‘is this the way they see us, I wonder why?’, even if it only puts a could of holes in the self-imposed dam holding back rationality and reason, then maybe that will be enough.
I don’t agree with your general point about cartoons – Zec’s ‘The Price of Petrol’ would be my first defense exhibit – but I can see your point in respect of these particular specimens. Perhaps the clue is that they were produced ‘as a test’ rather than, as with better examples, because the cartoonists had important political or social issues they genuinely wanted to address.
But it won’t be the first time that a general principle has had to be defended in the context of an unsatisfactory specific example – after all, ‘The Satanic Verses’ wasn’t by any means Rushdie’s best work…
This came up at dinner on Saturday night, in fact, on the way there we noticed that high school age kids were talking about it in the street around us. Specifically, discussing the turban/bomb picture, I riffed a little clarification about how it isn’t gratuitously offensive. “Supposing a guy breaks into your house and beats you up. Before leaving he says George sent him. This starts to happen every single day and it’s always done in the name of George. Wouldn’t there be something terribly wrong with you if you didn’t start to associate George with being beaten up? And could you be blamed if you had an extreme reaction upon being introduced to him?”
If a situation like that existed, what are the options? Maybe a bunch of sadistic maniacs have gotten together and invented a guy named George to cover for their perversions. If George exists, you’d think he’d step forward and take action against all the violence being done in his name. Or, whether or not he exists, you’d at least think that the other people who think he does and that he’s a swell guy would direct their animosity first and foremost at those giving him a bad name, instead of the people who’ve been beaten up and told it was on George’s instructions.
On the general cartoon issue, I can see where they are a lot weaker than a well-constructed verbal argument. But sometimes, if they’re good, they can be quick point-makers without the risk of getting long and boring. As with verbal arguments, there are good ones and awful ones.
I thought the one showing the male with his eyes blanked out in mirror image of the two women in burkas quite witty – it says everything about a blinkered attitude towards women that at root seems to be founded in a fear of male behaviour not female – lock them away because I can’t trust myself. That attitude then morphing into a hatred of all things feminine. Given the treatment of women who ‘transgress’ it certainly isn’t about any protective feelings!
“But it won’t be the first time that a general principle has had to be defended in the context of an unsatisfactory specific example”
Yes – that’s what I’m saying.
Don’t know if I’m off-topic here, but the more I think about it the more it troubles me that some serious observations aren’t being made, here, there or elsewhere, about the fact that the cartoons were published in September, and it is now February, and that as far as I noticed, in October, November, December and most of January the world was not on fire about this.
The precise extent to which the images were ‘provocative/offensive/insulting’ seems a trivial issue beside the question of how and why this minor event was dredged up from the archive to become today’s little conflagration. I suspect one could make a case that the deliberate provocation exists much more on the side of those who chose, retrospectively, to make an issue of it, than with the artists or editors in Denmark…
Probably OT, as I said…
I think that’s one of the questions being addressed by those who propose a link with the Iran nuclear business. It’s not logistically impossible; Friday sermons are the easy way of whipping a crowd into a frenzy.
Not really OT. And it’s been reported that it was in fact a Friday sermon – one in particular, I think, by an especially influential sermonizer, that set this off. So, yes, it’s definitely not the case that people took one look at the cartoons and instantly poured into the streets to express their anguished offendedness.
The tour by the Danish Islamists who added 3 extra cartoons helped things along, too.
I had not yet seen this when I posted the above. I was thinking of a more general diversion because of Iran, but if the following (at http://www.civitas.org.uk/blog/archives/2006/02/if_theres_hell_below_is_this_where_we_shall_all_be_spending_xmas_.html#more) is accurate, it is pretty interesting:
“But who wanted or caused the heat to become so turned up and why at that this particular moment?
The clue to the answers to this second question lies in a second event almost certain to occur to today, if it has not already happened by the time this blog gets posted. This is the likely decision today in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its programme of nuclear research. If that decision should occur, when the UN Security Council gets round to considering what form of sanctions to impose on Iran, guess to whom chairmanship of the Council will have passed. You’ve got it… plucky little Denmark.”
Plucky, and in fighting trim, having shed so many of its pesky heavy embassies.
As Matthew Parris puts it:
Isn’t that what political cartoons are, the farts.
Alright, now with Khameini in on the act, the other shoe has finally dropped. The Danes (and almost everyone else vaguely European and/or Christian) get clobbered by Muslims worldwide about some cartoons just after Hamas wins the Palestinian elections at the precise moment that the Iranian nuclear business is at its hottest ever. Khameini’s explanation that the cartoons are a Zionist plot unleashed because of the Hamas victory doesn’t have to mean a conspiracy; opportunism is enough. The main effect is that because Khameini says so, a lot of people are going to believe it. And we’ve already established here, once or twice, that there are dangerous people around who act on their beliefs. I can’t believe it’s the West that keeps on getting accused of fomenting a clash of civilisations where none would otherwise exist. I suspect Khameini of something most people probably don’t get around to: reading secular books by Jews. Specifically, William Goldman’s “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” in which he describes how Ernest Lehman and Alfred Hitchcock manage to wrap up seven different plot points in the last 43 seconds of “North by Northwest.” Where else could Khameini have picked up his technique?