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The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

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Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#121

Post by devoply »

Bakary wrote: post #39
cm2187 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Charlie Hebdo the intention was clearly to mock Islam indeed. But I am mystified that we are questioning in 2019 the right to blasphemy in a modern, western, free, secular society.

If publishing a cartoon causes your death I think the mockery may well have been legitimate.

Well the point is to protect founding myths because at the time of the invention of said myths they were very weak. And yeah if your myths can't survive criticism, maybe your myths are not worth believing in.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#122

Post by chroma »

acqq wrote: post #73
rdtsc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue now is that the puritanical outrage stretches past the pulpit and Letters to the Editor and directly into your notifications, I think many people have realized that they can control the discourse by pretending to be offended. And it is not easy to figure out if someone is genuinely distraught at seeing a cartoon like that (or anything really) or they are just claiming they are.

> And it is not easy to figure out if someone is genuinely distraught at seeing a cartoon like that (or anything really) or they are just claiming they are We should just not care. Somebody is always going to be offended with something. You can't please everyone. Somebody being offended in not an excuse to publish something. That's what's wrong with the present expectations -- the acceptance that "offending" someone…

I don't understand why this is downvoted so much. If we're going to apply the three filters (Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it true?), the parent comment seems to fulfill two of them. Can someone chime in and educate me?

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#123

Post by roenxi »

mevile wrote: post #23

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…

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.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#124

Post by [deleted] »

gfodor wrote: post #9
dlivingston wrote: post #7

"We are in a world where moralistic mobs gather on social media and rise like a storm, falling upon newsrooms in an overwhelming blow. This requires immediate counter-measures by publishers, leaving no room for ponderation or meaningful discussions. Twitter is a place for furor, not debate. The most outraged voices tend to define the conversation, and the angry crowd follows in." This is a significant problem, not ju…

It does confuse me that these mobs have such power on decision makers at companies and media outlets like this. The interesting thing about Twitter "mobs" is that if you look away from the computer screen or hit the button on the side of your phone, they are suddenly silent and may as well not exist. You can, in fact, log out of Twitter and never log back in again. Most of the time doing so will have zero long term n…

[deleted]

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#125

Post by meruru »

quietbritishjim wrote: post #15
gfodor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does confuse me that these mobs have such power on decision makers at companies and media outlets like this. The interesting thing about Twitter "mobs" is that if you look away from the computer screen or hit the button on the side of your phone, they are suddenly silent and may as well not exist. You can, in fact, log out of Twitter and never log back in again. Most of the time doing so will have zero long term n…

> It does confuse me that these mobs have such power on decision makers at companies and media outlets like this. The interesting thing about Twitter "mobs" is that if you look away from the computer screen or hit the button on the side of your phone, they are suddenly silent and may as well not exist. If you are a company then bad stories on Twitter could cause a significant drop in business. So if you just choose t…

I think part of the problem is that it's just as likely to cause a raise (from the increased exposure) as it is to cause a drop, which creates an incentive to do things that will incite outrage.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#126

Post by ehvatum »

ehvatum wrote: post #28

The drastic step of eliminating all political cartoons carries a very specific and misleading implication, if one assumes that the NYT is impartial. Which they are not: https://nypost.com/2019/04/30/anti-semitic-scandal-at-the-ne... With that in mind, ceasing publication of all political cartoons evidences extremely poor editorial discretion at the NYT. What, they are incapable of excluding Palestinian propaganda? Ap…

To elaborate on my comment, by eliminating all cartoons, the NYT invites one to think that politically correct over-sensitivity is the cause. Otherwise, why would they not simply avoid publishing anti-Semitic cartoons? Indeed, the author of the blog post suggests that "Twitter mobs" are at fault. But the NYT has an extensive, dark history of profoundly harmful anti-Semitism, including the editorial stance that the Holocaust was not occurring, as it occurred. This is extensively detailed in Buried by the Times, and is supported by that book's absolutely mammoth bibliography: https://www.amazon.com/Buried-Times-Holocaust-Important-News...

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#127

Post by meruru »

mevile wrote: post #23

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…

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.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#129

Post by marcosdumay »

praneshp wrote: post #18
hestefisk wrote: post #12

This reminds me of the famous Muhammad drawings in 2005 in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (JP). Back then they were seen as a defence of free speech and our democratic rights, a way of mocking the draconian regimes of the Middle East. Had it happened again today, the Puritan twittersphere would have been all over it and JP would likely have had to follow same route as NYT. Very sad.

> Back then they were seen as a defence of free speech and our democratic rights, a way of mocking the draconian regimes of the Middle East Was this an universal viewpoint in the West? As a non-Muslim teen in India I saw it as mocking Islam (I get that others' mileage varies).

It was mocking that rule prohibiting images of their god. Mocking a stupid rule is not the same as mocking an entire religion.

Re: The End of Political Cartoons at The New York Times

#130

Post by umvi »

marcosdumay wrote: post #129
praneshp wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Back then they were seen as a defence of free speech and our democratic rights, a way of mocking the draconian regimes of the Middle East Was this an universal viewpoint in the West? As a non-Muslim teen in India I saw it as mocking Islam (I get that others' mileage varies).

It was mocking that rule prohibiting images of their god. Mocking a stupid rule is not the same as mocking an entire religion.

Mohammed is not their God. The picture ban is supposed to prevent Muslims from the temptation of worshipping Mohammed (a man) instead of God.
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