The issue with Hands

A few things.

Yes, I believe we can appreciate someone for taking an honest position and we can hate their art. In my original post I clearly qualified things by saying we have to take him at his word for this to be admirable, so stating your doubts otherwise as a response to me and not to him is the same kind of deception and loaded argument you’re complaining about in the cartoon, as is suggesting I wanted kudos for the cartoon in your link-sentence.

You and I would probably disagree on the use of stereotypes and what constitutes a bad cartoon over a patently false one, as we probably would over whether or not a cartoon has to encompass the entirety of an issue in order to be legitimate. I would only ask that if you’re going to claim this as a principled position minus the politics involved, you apply to the other side. Because I’m sure there have been no stereotyped imagery in any other cartoons, or in Hands’ more politically left-leaning cartoons. I’m sure that making this specific decision on this specific suddenly turned him rotten, through and through.

Also, since I never talk about the cartoon, your Geert Wilders example is also beside any point. I think you could admire his honesty and hate the Islamophobia, if that were the case, sure. Why not? Are you saying that honest expression isn’t more admirable than jaded disingenousness? Are you suggesting that honest opinions lead to worse cartooning than disingenuous ones? Really? I mean there’s no guarantee, but I never said there was one. More importantly, why do you keep implying through examples like the Wilders that I’m saying this reflects in any way on the art?

Also as Mr. Hands is working for a newspaper in Wisconsin as opposed to counting on radio play in the south, so I don’t really take the Keith/Chicks examples seriously.

Tom,
But all this guy has done is repeat the propaganda of the governor. To sort of put this into the perspective through which I see this, was Judith Miller “admirable” because she believed the propaganda she was pumping out, or was she simply an incompetent journalist?

I get what you’re saying about the low standard of editorial cartooning, but I think all you’re really saying here is that Hands is admirable because he’s slightly better than the truly dismal editorial cartoonists out there. Well maybe so, but that’s a pretty sad comment on the state of editorial cartooning in the US, which is probably also true. And yes this will probably cost him, also true. But you know, its a really stupid, misinformed, comment at best. I could agree with you if the cartoon addressed what is happening (the elimination of union rights), but he doesn’t. So its a cartoon that takes a stand based upon a lie. Is that admirable? Not so sure it is.

Incidentally, Tom, I really glad that you’re still writing about comics. I’ve always admired the work that you did for the TCJ, and really liked your criticism over the years.

“will his honesty be a good example to other cartoonists”

This, the idea that artists need to be railroaded into some sort of moral straitjacket (what do they forfeit if they refuse?), is a rather distasteful sentiment.

I still don’t get it — the honesty is admirable, the resulting actions aren’t. Over time I think that honesty in art will put folks on the side of the angels more often than not. Even if that turns out not to be true, I would have to imagine they’re not connected — that being honest and being disingenuous result in the same number of virtuous and crappy cartoons. It would have to put you on the side of the devils more often than not for me to reconsider that taking the most honest stance is not an overall virtue.

“but I think all you’re really saying here is that Hands is admirable because he’s slightly better than the truly dismal editorial cartoonists out there:”

I don’t think I said that. I’m not all that familiar with Hands’ work, which is why I focused on this one statement and qualified it. I’m not discussing the one cartoon in question; I’m certainly not discussing his work overall. I’m saying that if you take a negative view of his work in an attempt so suggest some sort of causation, you have to account for all the other work out there in that same light, which I doubt interests folks as much a being critical of a cartoon to which they personally, politically object and finding something to throw at it.

Again, I restricted my commentary to what I thought was a suggested laudatory impulse in making the cartoon rather than the cartoon itself, so I’m not sure what to do with your repeated hammering home that you don’t like this cartoon for x, y, z reasons. I’m perfectly willing to acknowledge that an honest cartoon can be a bad cartoon — I’m not an expert on the matter at hand here to so boldly proclaim any cartoon a lie or 100 percent wrong on the matter, although I have a hunch, and I think politics provides us with expedient ways to make these proclamations with a confidence that’s usually not deserved, that even at times extend into psychic powers regarding the impulses behind their creation — but as I’ve said over and over and over again, I’m focused on the statement and the impulse and don’t have much of an opinion on the resulting cartoon at all. And I’d disagree with you that I particularly need to in order to make the point I wanted to make.

So keep hitting that point if you want, but at this point I’ll just shrug my shoulders at you. I’m certainly no less convinced of my second point, that a certain kind of politics influences any discussion to the point of driving it at the exclusion of any other factor. I think your reaction, and the reaction of folks that felt the cartoon was funny and thus extra-disturbing and that this was pertinent to anything I was saying, kind of underlines that for me.

I frankly don’t understand the moral straitjacket comment, and don’t even know if that’s aimed at me or Martin; I can’t fathom anything I’ve said as a call for being forced into a moral straitjacket other than to state my preference for a certain kind of behavior over another. If David Low were to have written later on in life that he was pro-Nazi all the way, and was just fulfilling a gig, it wouldn’t change the art, but I suspect I would never have to face the issue because that art probably wouldn’t have happened if Low were pro-Nazi.

Tom, I quoted Martin, which means my comment was addressing what he said.

Some quick points.

Tom, if I gave the impression that I doubted you rather than Hands that was unfortunate and not my intention.

I think the crux of the matter is that I don’t think it matters that it was brave of Hands to express his honest opinion if it leads to a cartoon that’s both bad politically and as a cartoon. I don’t really care if a political cartoonist is honest or not in his motivations, as long as he’s honest in his cartoons. And the problem with Hands was not so much that he used stereotypes or exagerration, but that he lied.

Honesty in the abstract is not a quality I particularly admire, which is why I mentioned Wilders: the results are the same whether he’s honest or disingenious in his hatred of Islam.

Bravery in pursuit of the wrong goal; again admirable in the abstract, but in a political context I’m more concerned about outcomes.

Again, I can sort of see why you found it interesting to put Hands up as somebody who at least had the courage of his convictions, but it was a bad example.

Branko,

I don’t want to put anybody in a moral straightjacket; rather that if you think his honesty should be an example to other cartoonists, it’s a bad example.

I’m not an expert on the matter at hand here to so boldly proclaim any cartoon a lie or 100 percent wrong on the matter, although I have a hunch, and I think politics provides us with expedient ways to make these proclamations with a confidence that’s usually not deserved, that even at times extend into psychic powers regarding the impulses behind their creation

Well the cartoon’s wrong, because what is being proposed is the elimination of public sector unions. Whereas his cartoon implies it’s about cuts in benefits. That’s a matter of simple fact.

Now if his cartoon had addressed what is happening (the elimination of public sector unions), fair enough. But he didn’t, instead it claims that the proposals/protests were about something else entirely.

So either the cartoonist is grotesquely misinformed, or he’s deliberately “lying”. I don’t pretend to know which it is, but neither is hugely impressive. My problem here isn’t with his politics, its with the fact that the cartoon as it stands, divorced from the creator’s intentions is a lie. Intentionally, or not.

The Governor’s bill would strip most WI public employees of almost all their collective bargaining rights, leaving them with no say over benefits or working conditions or the like and with pay increases no greater than the increase in the CPI (not at that rate, no greater than that rate). In short, the bill effectively guarantees that their standard of living will continue to decline in the future.

(Sidebar: I say “most” because under the bill, police and firefighter unions are exempt – those being, doubtless by the purest of coincidences, the unions that endorsed Walker in the campaign. Special kudos to those unions for standing in solidarity with their fellow state employees.)

The effect of the benefit cuts, depending on the particulars of an individual’s situation, will range from an 8% to an 11% cut in take-home pay, with the average around 10%. Even so, the affected unions have said they will agree to the cuts.

So: 1.The cuts are significant. 2.The unions have agreed to them. 3.The real issue is the protection of workers’ rights.

Yet Phil Hands has done a cartoon portraying unions as ’60s throwbacks screaming incoherently as the eminently reasonable governor prepares to make the tiniest and most harmless of snips.

Taking Hands at his word that this is his honest opinion, he has displayed a truly appalling ignorance of the facts at hand. Quite bluntly, I do not find that praiseworthy, no matter how “honest” the expression. “Honesty” is not a Get Out of Jail Free card for having no clue what the hell you are talking about.