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Comment by mevile | Hacker News Reader

Political cartoons are, in my opinion, reductionist garbage that fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and context. The caricature that inflate the size of ears and chins and lips and noses is not dignifying and doesn't add any value to whatever argument is being made, and can sometimes even be racist. There's no rebuttal to a political cartoon, there's no dialogue. They're cheap and easy to make and easy to consume and are just as easy to forget.

I don't care if they exist or not, either way I don't read them, but standing up for political cartoons as being a thing worth defending, I don't think it is. I think they hurt more than they help.

Go look at political cartoons from the sides of opinions you disagree with and see how they make you feel. Are they convincing you of anything or are they just making you mad?

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Standing up for free speech is a great thing to do; to reframe what you are saying we are dealing with one of the mildest outlets for anger that a demographic could possibly express. We want people to do that rather than escalating to, eg, yelling at people in person.

People get angry all the time and a lot of them don't know how to deal with it. A political cartoon may not be a shining example of debate but it is a great way to let people see that their feelings are understood and broadly communicated.

If it doesn't cover expressing an unpopular, offensive and unimportant opinion as an image, what does free speech mean to you? Are we only to have free speech on topics are declared important by popular survey?

Just to make it clear why that is a ridiculous idea, the principle of free speech is ultimately not for majorities, it is for minorities. You don't really need a concept of free speech to talk about things that are widely recognised as important and worthwhile by everyone. It is top protect things that are generally believed to be better left unsaid. Things like purposefully upsetting people with a cartoon.

A newspaper not publishing political cartoons is not a free speech issue. If the government were banning political cartoons, then it would be. A newspaper can print or not print whatever it wants.

It may not be an issue of Free Speech (however you define it), but it's still an issue of freedom to speak.

(My point is that you're trying to dismiss an issue by claiming to not fit an arbitrary category, but you haven't argued why not being into that category makes it a non-issue.)

But self-censorship of the press can surely be an issue, no?

A cartoon can only transport so much, but it might give a hint about the bigger picture. Which I think is not taken into account with assertions like yours.

> Political cartoons are, in my opinion, reductionist garbage that fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and context.

Not the good ones. As with everything, the good ones are rare and difficult. On occasions, the form even raises to an art form. Also, the point of a good political cartoon is usually not to influence of skew your opinion.

Do you have some examples of good ones? I tend to agree with the parent but would like to see examples of the contrary.

I actually agree with you and I wouldn't mourn the loss of political cartoons, but the fact that a Twitter mob can do that to a major news outlet is troublesome and scary.

> either way I don't read them, but standing up for political cartoons as being a thing worth defending, I don't think it is. I think they hurt more than they help.

I don't understand how you can understand their effects without reading them. What exactly brings you to this conclusion?

> Political cartoons are, in my opinion, reductionist garbage that fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and context.

Ironically, so are most news publications today, fueled by blue check journalists living in the same three cities...

"Are they convincing you of anything or are they just making you mad?" They give me a reasonable overview of the zeitgeist.

"... fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and contex" It's up to you to do your homework and dig into such specifics.

"... lips and noses is not dignifying ..." Not that conflicting written political pieces tend to dignify the opposing side either. Now, if caricatures make your heart bleed, you're very entitled to your opinion.

"There's no rebuttal to a political cartoon, there's no dialogue" Not until the internet came up and made communication 2-way.

"They're cheap and easy to make and easy to consume and are just as easy to forget." Like pretty much 90% of nowadays "journalism". Maybe the word should be "infotainment"

"Political cartoons are, in my opinion, reductionist garbage that fail to take into consideration nuance and complexity and context. "

They don't have to.

They can just be stupid and funny (to some) as well, that's fine too.

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