"... we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."
— George Orwell, in his 1939 review of Betrand Russell’s book 'Power: A New Social Analysis'
Garry Trudeau is the
Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, famous for his comic strip
'Doonesbury'.
Trudeau started writing
'Doonesbury' back in 1970, when he was 22 years old.
Here is Trudeau, on April 10 of 2015, describing his work on
'Doonesbury' as supposedly
'raw and subversive'. Trudeau made these remarks at the Long Island University's George Polk Awards ceremony, where he received
the 2014 George Polk Career Award for 'Doonesbury' --
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-abuse-of-satire/390312/
The Abuse of Satire
GARRY TRUDEAU April 11, 2015
My career—I guess I can officially call it that now—was not my idea. When my editor, Jim Andrews, recruited me out during my junior year in college and gave me the job I still hold, it wasn’t clear to me what he was up to. Inexplicably, he didn’t seem concerned that I was short on the technical skills normally associated with creating a comic strip—it was my perspective he was interested in, my generational identity. He saw the sloppy draftsmanship as a kind of cartoon vérité, dispatches from the front, raw and subversive.
Why were they so subversive? Well, mostly because I didn't know any better. My years in college had given me the completely false impression that there were no constraints, that it was safe for an artist to comment on volatile cultural and political issues in public. In college, there's no down side. In the real world, there is, but in the euphoria of being recognized for anything, you don't notice it at first. Indeed, one of the nicer things about youthful cluelessness is that it's so frequently confused with courage.
...
Pay special attention to these remarks that Trudeau made later in the same speech regarding Muslim attacks over cartoons, and specifically,
'Charlie Hebdo' --
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/04/the-abuse-of-satire/390312/
...
I, and most of my colleagues, have spent a lot of time discussing red lines since the tragedy in Paris. As you know, the Muhammad cartoon controversy began eight years ago in Denmark, as a protest against “self-censorship,” one editor’s call to arms against what she felt was a suffocating political correctness. The idea behind the original drawings was not to entertain or to enlighten or to challenge authority—her charge to the cartoonists was specifically to provoke, and in that they were exceedingly successful. Not only was one cartoonist gunned down, but riots erupted around the world, resulting in the deaths of scores. No one could say toward what positive social end, yet free speech absolutists were unchastened. Using judgment and common sense in expressing oneself were denounced as antithetical to freedom of speech.
And now we are adrift in an even wider sea of pain. Ironically, Charlie Hebdo, which always maintained it was attacking Islamic fanatics, not the general population, has succeeded in provoking many Muslims throughout France to make common cause with its most violent outliers. This is a bitter harvest.
Traditionally, satire has comforted the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable. Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful. Great French satirists like Molière and Daumier always punched up, holding up the self-satisfied and hypocritical to ridicule. Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny—it’s just mean.
By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died. Meanwhile, the French government kept busy rounding up and arresting over 100 Muslims who had foolishly used their freedom of speech to express their support of the attacks.
...
The pretentious absurdity of Trudeau's comment regarding the original Muhammad cartoon controversy deserves special attention — you may recall that controversy arose from a
'Jyllands-Posten' issue
published in 2005 in Denmark —
The idea behind the original drawings was not to entertain or to enlighten or to challenge authority—her charge to the cartoonists was specifically to provoke, and in that they were exceedingly successful.
Even if Trudeau's claim is true — that the original cartoons were designed to provoke —
how is that relevant?
Is this how far the average person has regressed in their understanding of the requirements of a free society? Do highly educated people
really want to argue that if someone claims they were
'provoked' by a cartoon, that that gives them
any kind of justification for committing a
mass murder?
Stop and ponder that, and the kind of world we will soon live in (if we do not already), if sociopathic religious fanatics are given sympathy for every mass murder they commit, as long as they
have a cartoon they can refer to that mocks some aspect of their religion —
even when that aspect deserves to be mocked.
And notice that Trudeau's claim that the original intent of the Muhammad cartoons
'was not to entertain or to enlighten or to challenge authority', is a purely subjective opinion that does absolutely nothing to support his feeble and grotesquely cowardly criticism. And again, even if this claim
were true, it also does absolutely nothing to give cause to fanatical Muslims to commit mass murders.
Let's be clear, for those like Trudeau who are so completely confused about this — if someone created cartoons that were
specifically about you, and you could
prove they were libelous, and so you murdered the author of the cartoons, in any civilized country you would not be celebrated for 'avenging your name' — you would rightfully be charged with murder. That is, reasonable people do not see
murder as an appropriate penalty
for insults, however damaging, since an
insult and death are in no way
proportional.
And
a direct personal defamation is
not analogous to the situation Trudeau is commenting on — a defamation of particular individuals is a
more extreme case, and emphasizes the absurdity of Trudeau's position, since even then, the sympathy and support that Trudeau is expressing for the murderers would
still be insane. None of this is about
a direct personal attack, it is about mockery of Islam — i.e. a body of religious belief.
And it should also be repeated here,
for people who share Ben Affleck's confusion, that religions are
not races of people — that is, being Muslim, or Catholic, or Protestant, etc., is
a choice. We all know that anyone can change their religious beliefs
whenever they want (well,
except for Muslims, since some may end up being murdered by their family members). But obviously being Japanese, or Ethiopian, or Italian, or Irish, etc., is
not a choice — you cannot change your race,
ever.
And notice that it is trivial to make the case that
the original Muhammad cartoons did exactly what Trudeau claims they did not — that is,
entertain, enlighten, and challenge authority.
Here is just one example from the
'Jyllands-Posten' cartoons published back in 2005
--
http://www.aina.org/releases/20060201143237.htm
 |
| Example of a Muhammed cartoon published by Jyllands-Posten back in 2005. |
To those admiring readers of Trudeau, please explain why this cartoon, as just one example, does not do
exactly what Trudeau claims it does not?
If anything, the cartoon above is much more effective in achieving Trudeau's supposed goal of spreading
'enlightenment' than the typical insipid
'Doonesbury' strip (more on that below).
But we should keep in mind, again, that it is, after all,
only a cartoon, so Trudeau has some pretty lofty goals for a
simple comic strip (never mind a single cartoon). So we should be clear, there is an obvious self-flattery in Trudeau's remarks quoted above. That is, Garry Trudeau expresses an
incredible delusion, if he believes that
all of
'Doonesbury' consistently displays one or more of the qualities he listed in his talk quoted above:
'entertains, enlightens, or challenges authority'.
No cartoon or comic strip will consistently achieve those goals — if it can
achieve them at all — and Trudeau's strip
'Doonesbury' acts as a perfect and glaring demonstration of that obvious point. If Trudeau's criteria are valid for judging the legitimacy of
any cartoon, and are
required to justify its existence, we have failure at the outset for
all cartoonists, and
'Doonesbury' also has no right to exist.
So fancy that, a
pretentious cartoonist thinks
he is a beacon of enlightenment. Please.
Let me take a crack at pointing out what seems
so difficult for Trudeau (among others) to understand —
Entertains: I found the cartoon above entertaining, because it is a mocking reminder of how hypocritical so many people are in their claims that Islam is a religion of peace, while they simultaneously ignore that
so many Muslims are busy murdering others, simply because they disagree. Again, notice the
painfully obvious point that cartoonists cannot infringe on religious freedom with drawings, but murder is the ultimate infringement of freedom.
Enlightens: I found the cartoon above enlightening (at least indirectly), because it prompted me to do a little more digging into the foundations of such mockery, and my conclusion as a result is that such mockery is
richly deserved (it is
terribly polite, considering recent events).
Challenges Authority: Well, who is Trudeau trying to kid with this asinine mention? How is mocking a violent religion, because many of it fanatical followers want to bomb people into self-submission to the religion's insane theocratic rules,
not 'challenging authority'. Trudeau's claim that
'Charlie Hebdo' was
'attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority' was especially ironic, given that most of those cartoonists have now been murdered by that
'powerless, disenfranchised minority' that came from the ranks of
over 1 billion Muslims.
Some may be quick to comment that the three descriptions I provide above are not compelling, since they are just one person's subjective opinion — just as I pointed out that Trudeau's comments are just one person's subjective opinion. Well, that is part of my point —
at a minimum, there is no reasonable way anyone can claim that my opinion is any less valid than Trudeau's, and any comparison between two subjective opinions in this regard is ultimately irrelevant. Why? Because other than the psychopathic religious fanatics who murder people for drawing pictures they do not like (like those who murdered the
'Charlie Hebdo' cartoonists), there is no conflict between freedom of speech and freedom of religion — that is, it is not possible for free speech to impinge on the ability of others to practice their religion. But as the attacks on
'Charlie Hebdo' clearly prove (as do numerous other similar atrocities), the reverse is not true. Fanatical religious belief is a
terrible problem, and
Islam is the poster child of fanatical religious belief.
And notice the absolutely idiotic comment Trudeau made regarding the
'Charlie Hebdo' cartoons and the French law prohibiting hate speech that
directly incites violence —
By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died.
Well, add the phrase
'directly inciting' to the many things that Trudeau is completely confused about. Notice that
nothing would
not count as
'directly inciting violence', if any claim to
'being provoked' was considered
'direct'. I'm only guessing here, but I would expect that the French law was meant to address
actual statements that admonish
specific acts of violence — oh like, say, those in the Quran which demand that Muslims behead non-believers
--
http://quran.com/47/4
http://quran.com/8/12
The absurdity in Trudeau's comments is massive, and it is a tragic comedy that such comments would be made at an awards ceremony named in honor of
a journalist who was executed during wartime.
What a priceless irony. If there is anyone who does
not deserve a
George Polk Award, it is Trudeau.
So let's stress the obvious again, since there are so many people like Trudeau who are desperately trying to avoid it.
'Charlie Hebdo', among others, mocks a belief system that
demands husbands beat their wives when they are too disobedient, for example, not to mention the admonishment that
Muslims should behead those who do not believe, and
'Charlie Hebdo' is denounced for supposedly committing
hate speech, while the Quran's many demands for violence go unmentioned. You could not make this up.
If you are not foolish enough to be one of Trudeau's admiring readers, you should not be shocked by his contemptible comments. Trudeau has a long history of pandering, so it is not the least bit surprising that once again, he has taken
the least risky, and most slavishly conformist stance — while simultaneously deluding himself that he is being
'subversive'.
Oh brother.
I've included a couple of
'Doonesbury' strip examples below, and it is easy to find plenty more that are just as bad, if you do not mind slumming through the
'Doonesbury' archive at
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury.
Consider this Doonesbury comic strip from January 24, 2016, and keep in mind that
Garry Trudeau was born in July of 1948, so
he was 67 years old when he wrote this (that is, he was certainly no dippy college student at the time)
--
http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2016/01/24
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2016/01/24
Notice that a highly respected syndicated cartoonist,
who is well over 60 years old, still has no idea what a profit margin is, and wants you to believe that it is
a general rule that a business can become more profitable by
simply raising one of its primary costs (i.e. labor). The wishful thinking in Trudeau's strip above is actually hilarious — if raising employee pay to $15 an hour can make a company much more profitable, in part
because employees can then buy more of the company's products, then if employee pay were doubled again, the company's profits would really shoot up! Brilliant!
I even found it amusing that Trudeau made the woman the
supposed voice of reason and moral authority in the strip above, because I doubt that it even occurred to Trudeau to reverse their roles, given how prone he is to politically correct thinking. In today's culture, in describing a conversation between a man and a woman,
of course a slavishly conformist writer like Trudeau would make the man the supposed fool, rather than the woman.
The flaw in Trudeau's logic here is glaring (surprise!), and, again, it should not be required to point it out. But oh well.
To take just one example, shown below, among other stats, is the profit margin for the highly successful company Yum! Brands, which is the parent company of a number of restaurant chains (like Pizza Hut and Taco Bell). Notice that their profit margin for the trailing twelve months (ttm) ending in April of 2016,
was less than 10% --
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=YUM+Profile
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YUM+Key+Statistics
Profit margin is defined as the percentage of every dollar of sales a company keeps in earnings.
So think about what that means for a highly successful company like Yum! Brands, whose profit margin is less than 10%. Such a profit margin means that Yum! Brands must have $10 dollars in sales to earn
a single dollar in profit, since they only keep a dime of every dollar in sales. And if one of their costs went up in isolation (like the labor cost increase Trudeau uses in the strip as
supposedly increasing profitability), that cost increase would have to generate an increase in sales of
10 times that amount, just to cover the increased cost, and restore their original level of profit (never mind increasing their profitability).
That is, the profitability of a company with a 10% profit margin, could not go up after
any cost increase, until 10 times that increase occurred in their sales. This is obvious, and follows directly from the nature of a profit margin. If a company loses, say, $1,000 dollars to a cost increase, their sales must increase by that loss divided by their profit margin (10% in this example), like this —
$1,000 / 10%, or 10 x $1,000 dollars, which is
$10,000 dollars
Or, stated a different way, since with a 10% profit margin, a company only keeps $1 dollar of every $10 dollars in sales, $10,000 dollars in increased sales will then be required to replace a $1,000 loss to any increased cost.
With that in mind, consider the absurdity of Trudeau's statements in the strip above regarding employees shopping at the company that employs them after a pay raise — even if
all the employees spent their
entire pay raise with
their own employer, that would not even begin to cover the cost increase. Again, since companies only keep a small fraction of their sales.
The
'Doonesbury' strip above is essentially a stupid repetition of the often repeated myth that Henry Ford raised wages to $5 dollars a day at his
Highland Park plant back in 1914,
so his factory workers would be able to purchase the cars they were producing. It takes little thought to see the absurdity of this premise, but in any case, that is not what motivated the raise.
When Ford instituted the raise in 1914 he had a
massive and costly problem with turnover. In 1913, turnover at Ford's Highland Park plant was
an incredible 370% --
http://hfha.org/the-ford-story/henry-ford-an-impact-felt/
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/fords-assembly-line-turns-100-how-it-really-put-the-world-on-wheels-feature
...
By 1913 daily absences along the line were such that with 13,000 workers toiling away at the various assembly operations, Henry Ford needed over 1,000 extra men just to fill in for those who did not turn up for work. Further, the labor turnover at the Highland Park Plant was an astounding 370%. This meant that for every position in the plant, Ford needed to hire 4 men hoping one would work out and stay in the job for more than a few weeks or months. Ford went through more than 52,000 men to keep a workforce of only 14,000 working full time.
In 1913 the majority of line workers were from eastern and southern Europe and their supervisors were American born. Language became a barrier to production. Drastic measures were necessary if Henry Ford was to keep up a rate of production that would meet the ever expanding demand for his Model T. When confronted with the problem by his managers, Henry Ford declared that they simply needed to make more men.
On January 12, 1914 the Ford Motor Company announced that it would pay eligible workers a minimum wage of $5 per day. For Ford workers it meant that their wage was going to more than double. Ford also announced that it was going to reduce the work day from nine hours to eight, giving each employee one more hour outside the factory each day. This would also permit the conversion of the factory from two daily shifts to a three-shift per day operation.
...
And notice that part of that $5 dollar a day wage was bonus, and there was a pretty
big catch for receiving the full amount
--
http://hfha.org/the-ford-story/henry-ford-an-impact-felt/
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/fords-assembly-line-turns-100-how-it-really-put-the-world-on-wheels-feature
...
There were strings attached to that $5 bill. The basic wage was $2.34. To qualify for the additional $2.66, a worker had to meet company standards for clean living, including sobriety, no gambling, thrift, and a happy home environment. Ford actually formed a sociological department whose staff members visited homes to assess workers’ worthiness for the full five bucks.
...
Can you imagine a company today sending representatives to worker's homes,
to check on the quality of their home life as a condition of employment or pay?
In any case, the point is that the conditions Ford was addressing with the pay increase were very specific: he was trying to keep men form leaving grueling, monotonous, and often dangerous factory floor jobs, because the turnover was so costly. Such circumstances are rare in jobs today, so there is no indication that simply doubling the pay of certain workers would achieve the same outcome as it did for Ford back in 1914. After all, what company today faces an employee turnover of anything approaching 370%?
I deliberately chose Yum! Brands as an example above, because there has been so much hype in the media recently regarding the wages in the food service industry, and because of the obvious dramatic differences between those jobs, and the typical job in Ford's Highland Park plant, back in 1914. Even if turnover were unusually high in the food service industry, the cost of that turnover is much lower than it would have been on a turn of the century factory assembly line. How long does it take to become competent at an entry-level restaurant job? That the training is minimal is why such jobs are referred to as 'entry-level'. Regarding the cost of Ford's turnover, I read that before the 1914 pay raise, some workers would just walk out of the Highland Park plant in the middle of their shift, bringing the assembly line to a halt — nothing comparable would happen if a fast food worker did the same. You have to understand that difference, to understand the enormous cost of Ford's employee turnover problem.
This is not meant to denigrate the skills needed by entry-level food service workers. The point is that Henry Ford was not just trying to
boost morale — he had a crisis of morale
that was enormously costly. In short, a wage increase that was not targeted at a very costly problem in employee turnover, would not make a company more profitable. As the Yum! Brands example above illustrates, the gains in productivity from an employee pay raise would have to be massive in terms of their dollar value, since a company typically keeps such a small amount of their total sales as profit. And it is pure delusion to believe that a company like Yum! Brands could achieve $1 dollar of productivity gains
for every dollar they raised wages, since fast food operations must already be heavily streamlined to be competitive.
And regarding Ford's 1914 factory workers purchasing the Model-Ts they were building —
in 1914 Ford produced over 200,000 cars with a factory workforce of about
14,000, so even if
every single Ford factory worker purchased a Ford car (not likely), those purchases would not have added
even 7% to Ford's total sales. And, again, even if
all of Ford's employees spent their entire raise purchasing Ford cars (impossible), it still would
not even return the cost of the raise, but only the fraction of those sales that Ford kept as earnings (depending on Ford's exact profit margin at the time).
It is not surprising that these inconvenient details are ignored when discussing employee pay raises, since they undercut the wildly popular, but ignorant sentiment that Trudeau was pandering to in his strip.
Now consider this
'Doonesbury' comic strip from April 3, 2011. I actually enjoyed this particular strip as a glaring example of psychological projection and delusion on the part of Trudeau. After all, what is more worthless than a cartoonist who
simply repeats popular myths and biases, and, again, while pretending he is
'challenging authority' and
'subversive' --
http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2011/04/03
http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2011/04/03
Trudeau's strip above is so aggressively stupid, it does not deserve comment. To those who have some sympathy for the
obviously false notion that the banking profession
as a whole is worthless, I suggest that you put your money under your mattress, and see how that works for you. Good luck.
But what is truly fascinating here, is that one cannot reasonably argue that the strip above is not
'hate speech',
if Trudeau's criteria are applied — that is, the strip above
only provokes.
Let's apply Trudeau's criteria.
What authority does the strip challenge? Bankers? How? No one is forced to use banking products — and bankers are certainly not
murdering people who do not submit. Bankers certainly are not a
'disenfranchised minority', to use Trudeau's words, but they are certainly not a majority, in a position of authority.
How does the strip enlighten? By repeating a popular public ignorance that Wall St. banks caused an economic collapse, while nothing is ever said about the irresponsibility of borrowers? Or the government sponsored lending agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that facilitated most loans? You have to be completely ignorant of most of the facts regarding the lending industry to think that Trudeau's absurd characterization is
'enlightening'.
Entertaining? I'm sure it is to some, but, again, only to the most ignorant individuals, who are comforted by such absurd over simplifications, which give them a convenient
whipping boy.
The only thing that is missing, is a violent protest by bankers, with the rationale
'Trudeau provoked us!' — since in that case Trudeau would have to acknowledge that by his own definition he
'directly incited violence', given his profound confusion in that regard.
Of course, Trudeau would counter that he only attacks so-called
'privileged classes' — as if the intended subject somehow magically determines the appropriate evaluation of the speech used in an attack, rather than
the content of that speech. If you provoke and attack those who meet Trudeau's subjective definition of a
'privileged class', excellent, otherwise, you are guilty of
'hate speech'.
To be clear, it would be absolutely asinine for someone to argue that Trudeau's strip above is
'hate speech', because
it does nothing but provoke. But that is precisely how asinine Trudeau's comments are — if
'only provoking' is our simple minded definition of
'hate speech', then by any reasonable measure,
'Doonesbury' is filled with
'hate speech'.
This is the ultimate danger of Trudeau's aggressively stupid thinking. With a subjective standard for speech illegitimacy like
'only provokes',
nothing is safe, and
'Doonesbury' would be the first to go, Trudeau's pretentious self-flattery notwithstanding.
And this is precisely the
'positive social end' of the Muhammad cartoons that Trudeau is so completely clueless about. That is, they do
exactly what Trudeau in his grotesque display of cowardice claims they do not —
they 'punch up' at a supposed authority, and the attempts of its many delusional followers to establish a theocracy.
Trudeau claims that
'Charlie Hebdo' 'attacked a powerless, disenfranchised minority' — given that we are talking about Islam, this is obviously absurd, and just another dramatic demonstration of Trudeau's crippled thinking.
'Charlie Hebdo' mocked a
brazenly irrational belief system whose violent followers are attempting to terrorize others into submitting to its insane dictates.
Perhaps Trudeau will one day have the courage
to actually live up to his own statement, but I doubt it —
Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful.
As an aside, as a senior in high school I had a teacher (this was decades ago) who was an ardent
'Doonesbury' fan. So much so, that one day she had the class watch a
'Doonesbury' animated movie (I don't remember which Doonesbury movie it was — I think there is only one, but it isn't worth looking it up). But I recall making a derogatory remark about the film afterward (something to the effect that it was a waste of time), because even as an
inexperienced high school student, Trudeau's writing seemed to me to be filled with stupid bromides and idiotic rationalizations (like the two strips I commented on above). I could not articulate it then, but I think my high school reaction was the same basic feeling I have about Trudeau's work today —
it is obvious cowardice posturing as risk taking. Those he attacks or mocks
are never going to do anything in response, and he has always known it. Just as he knows it is safe to attack murdered victims of Islam, whereas it is not safe to attack the violence advocated by the Quran. The biggest risk Trudeau ever faced was being dropped from syndication.
The only reason I remember the high school event at all, is because the teacher overheard my denigrating comment, to which she responded with her own sophomoric retort, in perfect pretentious Trudeau fashion:
'Well, I figured it would go over your heads.' And later I saw her in the hall, and she gave me a pretty heavy glare.
At the time I just found that teacher's response annoying, and I certainly made no attempt to challenge her, but in the few times that the event has come to mind in the years that followed (like when I'm pondering the dysfunctional nature of our public education system), I can only think how pathetic it was that
a mature adult was incapable of even attempting to defend her convictions to a high school student. Such is the nature of a
'Doonesbury' fan.
