Tom the Dancing Bug mocks Trudeau for his Charlie Hebdo stand

April 28, 2015 • 11:30 am

Unlike other “alternative” comic strips, “Tom the Dancing Bug” doesn’t allow others to reproduce them on their websites, and if I put the latest strip up, “Doonesbury’s Charlie Hebdo Problem,” I’d get a takedown notice. So I’ll simply rgive the link and you can go see Ruben Bolling’s takedown of Garry Trudeau. He uses “abortion supporters” as the “oppressed minority” that you can’t punch down at, and the piece is drawn in a Doonesbury style.

Trudeau really does deserve the opprobrium that he’s getting for his attitude on satire and his victim-blaming.

Now I’m just waiting for someone to rebuke me for accepting determinism and yet thinking I can affect Trudeau by shaming him!

49 thoughts on “Tom the Dancing Bug mocks Trudeau for his Charlie Hebdo stand”

  1. The bottom line is Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are much more authentically martyrs than aggrieved Muslims.

    Why do secular martyrs get less attention than religious ones? (unless they are from a bygone era like Giordano Bruno thus helping to usher in modernity.)

    In particular, secularists are currently being horribly persecuted now in Bangla Desh (see http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/secular-martyrs/) but this gets appears to get more coverage in Indian media than in the Western press.

    There might be long chain of causality connecting Muslim terrorism and earlier Western colonialism (a la Terry Eagleton) but the latter is surely not the SOLE cause of terrorism, but we have to focus on what’s happening now. One does not excuse Nazism because of Allied perfidies regarding the Treaty of Versailles.

    Why in an age of ISIS are Westerners still not more alarmed at the real menace this militant wing of Islam poses. One does not capitulate to decapitators.

    I would be delighted if the more moderate voices of Islam such as Reza Aslan become dominant in the Muslim community, but one cannot boycott events honoring the memory of Hebdo in promotion of such a cause.

    1. I know I’m nobody, but I have covered Bangladesh a bit on my website, and have been getting around to finishing another article for a week. (I frequently get delayed in my aims by my physical limits.) It may not be the next article posted, but it’s not far away.

      I’m not sure things like colonialism can be blamed much for Bangladesh’s problems. One of the main goals of the Islamists is to rejoin the government to that of Pakistan, as was originally envisioned by the British. Although, of course, the reason they like Pakistan so much is the strength the Taliban still has. Extremists have no political power in Bangladesh, although they have managed to influence policy via violent protests.

      1. Heather, is there a reason you don’t have your posting name here link to your blog? It’s one I’m sure many WEITians would find quite interesting (if they haven’t already visited when Jerry’s touted your posts).

  2. Determinism / free will doesn’t matter in this case. Trudeau’s brain might be programmed to respond to public shaming (by you, on your web site) by changing course. So shame away.

      1. Oops. I am apparently not deterministically programmed to read your site every day or to fully catch up before posting a comment…

  3. I thought Trudeau’s response video with Chuck Todd was evasive and unpersuasive. Professor, have you tried to engage him in a conversation on this matter? I would very much like to hear his responses when pressed further than the video interview provided. It does seem that it might just be a gratuitous flogging…

  4. “Trudeau really does deserve the opprobrium that he’s getting for his attitude on satire and his victim-blaming.”

    Under determinism, we can’t suppose he deserves opprobrium and shame because he could have done otherwise in the actual situation (he couldn’t have), so in what sense does he deserve it? Only in a forward looking sense: to get him to change his behavior, deter others, etc. But this strictly consequentialist (vs. deontological) notion of desert shouldn’t carry implications of being morally responsible in the way that getting one’s “just deserts” carries. Seeing that Trudeau couldn’t have done otherwise definitely colors our reactivity about his mistakes, in a way that keeps opprobrium and shame within more justifiable limits, one would hope. We see Trudeau as a function of conditions, not as ultimately blameworthy.

    1. I didn’t say that Trudeau was morally irresponsible; I don’t believe in that. But he still deserves opprobrium to reform his misguided notions and to educate the bystanders. “Blameworthy” he is–in that sense.

      1. Seeing that, but for circumstances, I’d be just as benighted as Trudeau on this issue definitely keeps me from getting on too high a horse about his mistakes. Not that I’m suggesting you are.

        1. Does that mean that you’d say the same thing about Hitler? Because if you were in Hitler’s circumstances you would have done what he did? Or can we ladle out opprobrium in proportion to how much bad someone does, regardless of whether they couldn’t have helped himself. Just saying that if you’re in someone’s circustances you’d be just as bad as they were seems to imply that we shouldn’t criticize anyone’s actions too severely!

          1. Well, as you know determinism is true for all of us, but as you point out the moral stakes are a lot higher for some situations than others, even if no one is morally responsible and deserving in that sense. So criticism should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offense, so long as it doesn’t lead people to suppose that the perpetrator was in any sense ultimately self-made (demonization routinely does this, unfortunately).

            We’re predisposed to single out particular, visible agents (e.g., leaders, celebrities) as blameworthy unmoved movers of events, which serves to draw attention away from their antecedents and situations, without which they wouldn’t have been or done anything. Which of course is a huge disadvantage in trying to prevent future wrong-doing, and why bringing up determinism (which you do) is so critical in changing the conversation about credit, blame, reward and punishment.

        2. To the extent I think I understand determinism as it would apply in these sorts of situations, wouldn’t someone who believes that determinism is the case use whatever method appears to be most effective under the circumstances? Depending on what is at stake and how immediate the problem is, the method ranges from reasoning together, to a sharp rebuke, to a kick in the shins, and we escalate from there depending on the circumstances. Mr. Trudeau or those inclined to agree with him may only respond to a rather major public shaming with lots of p.r. fireworks, and that is therefore appropriate regardless of Mr. Trudeau’s genuine excuse (“I only did what I had to.”).

          What I think is interesting is that I don’t see how consciously believing that determinism is correct changes your actions if we presume you’re more or less reasonable to begin with (as opposed, for example, to someone who is attempting to do exactly what their holy book commands without letting any reasoning intrude). You will always use the best or most effective method you can think of, assuming you have time to think and believe you need to act. Your conscious sympathies may change, but not your behavior, e.g., I’m really sorry about this, but given the circumstances, now I’m going to kill you. Or am I still missing something?

        3. Seeing that, but for circumstances, I’d be just as benighted as Trudeau

          I’m not clear on what this is supposed to mean. You are the product of your circumstances, and Trudeau is the product of his. In what sense could you be transplanted into Trudeau’s precise circumstances, and still be meaningfully considered you and not him?

          1. I only mean that had my circumstances been different, I might have ended up with something like Trudeau’s views. So I consider myself lucky in my circumstances.

    2. Many times I have quoted Sam Harris here because I think he explains it well in his Freewill book.

      If, after weeks of deliberation, library research, and debate with your friends, you still decide to kill the king – well, then killing the king reflects the sort of person you really are. The point is not that you are the ultimate and independent cause of your actions; the point is that, for whatever reason, you have the mind of a regicide.

      And the mind of a regicide needs to be away from the king and Trudeau needs to receive inputs to change his mind and failing that, we need to provide arguments that may change other minds who are influenced by him.

  5. “the piece is drawn in a Doonesbury style”

    It certainly is. It could be mistaken for a Doonesbury strip except for the content. Very well done!

  7. He uses “abortion supporters” as the “oppressed minority” that you can’t punch down at…

    He’s using abortion opponents this way.

    I think David Frum might have used the same example in a diavlog with Robert Wright, who’s gotten way sanctimonious on this.

  8. Excellent cartoon.

    Islamic terrorists are authentic right-wing gun nuts, gleefully carrying out mass shootings in the name of an authoritarian, repressive, theocratic, anti-liberal, anti-secular, anti-science, anti-feminist, anti-gay ideology. How anyone, especially a supposed liberal like Trudeau, can think that ridiculing such a worldview (and the people who hold it) constitutes “punching down,” is beyond me.

    Again: these are right-wing gun nuts. Maybe we need to make a point of calling them that whenever misguided liberals try to make excuses for them.

    1. I like the way you describe the extremists.

      The whole notion of not punching down is stupid. There are several minorities I will continue to criticize e.g. white supremacists. Even if it wasn’t a stupid idea, it violates the principle of freedom of expression, which is essential in maintaining democracy.

      1. Yes because openness is key to a democracy and freedom of speech is a big part of openness. Silencing people and driving them underground is unhealthy for a democracy.

  9. It does strike me as curious that someone like Salmon Rushdie or Ayaan Hirsi Ali needs armed guards to protect them from people who are powerless. Trudeau has a very strange definition of powerless.

    1. I know it’s a typo, but “Salmon Rushdie” gave me a comical mental image.

  10. In somewhat related news, I learned an hour ago that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has visited Sweden to promote her latest book [“Heretic”]. I found a short interview in a national newspaper, mostly positive but the “Islamophobia” topic popped up at the end. [ http://www.dn.se/dnbok/lars-vilks-ar-en-hjalte-for-mig/ ]

    Hirsi Ali gives a more positive description of Vilks than I did, and suggest I should be proud by him. Perhaps I should.

    Oh, and Hirsi Ali has lifeguards. In Sweden. (Which admittedly also Vilks has since, I believe, he made his first road sculpture “Muhammad Dogs”, as I think they are called. That was years ago.) Maybe Trudeau thinks she uses them to ‘punch down’.

  11. Trudeau believes French Muslims are “disempowered and disenfranchised”.

    Tell me, people living in North America: what do you think he has in mind about the predicaments of French Muslims?

    What does it look like from your side of the Ocean?

  13. I see no conflict between determinism and efforts to change other people’s behaviour.

  14. I’m still trying to understand, if I read correctly, that Trudeau thinks satire, even wicked satire, or criticism is valid or acceptable ONLY if it is laid down very evenly (over time? in each slice?) against all similarly situated potential targets? Or against all “punched down” targets? Can’t I just go after boneheaded snake-handlers from Kentucky? Or vile pretentious Texas politicians with their idiotic beliefs?

    Maybe I read him wrong. But I think it would have been perfectly fine if Charlie Hebdo had devoted all their fine satire against the excesses or even the regular bulk of Islamic thought. That is freedom. That is justified in my opinion, but the point is, it doesn’t matter what my opinion is or freaking Doonesbury’s. Freedom of speech is just that.

  15. Clearly there is no conflict between determinism and efforts to change people’s behavior. I work in IT. I spend eight hours a day trying to change the behavior of computers, and I don’t for one second think that their behavior isn’t totally determined by physical law.

  16. Salon has a great article about PEN and Charlie Hebdo by Laura Miller. Here’s a wonderful sentence:

    Raised in the Catholic Church, I regard anti-clerical campaigns as anything but passé; my own experience suggests to me that some French Muslims might find irreverent portrayals of the prophet, however crass, to be a crowbar prying open the confining box of tradition and piety.

  17. I see Tom’s cartoon is drawn in the style of Trudeau. In fact it’s the first ‘Trudeau’ cartoon I could see the point of…

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