Hard disagree. That's probably where I first learned to not take political messages for granted, regardless of ideology. I think the fact that they are so often terrible is the primary reason to study them closer.
Also if we stop teaching this to kids, all future political memes will have Ben Garrison labels for everything.
I suppose it depends what ideological leaning your history teacher & curriculum had. I really have no frame of reference to compare on this though, mine can only be characterized as "rich liberal globalist." I remember being exposed to a Howard Zinn take on WWI, where I think we were supposed to learn about the dangers of "revisionist history" but I think it went over my head because even as a liberal I was like "yeah this sounds about right."
Also as a funny aside I really liked my history teacher and often stayed after class to talk to him. I thought he was the most "liberal" (aka "left") person I had met. For context, I was raised thinking America was ok-ish but unfortunately filled with stupid fat warhungry people who bombed the middle east for oil, obviously I had no concept of how little say the people actually have. I asked him for his take on the war and whether it really was all for oil and he said "of course it's all about oil! but do you like using plastic? do you like driving cars? if america didn't control the oil supply we could kiss all that goodbye!" and for the first time I realized what a truly evil ideology that was.
Yeah definitely, but as I remember it they often had historical significance, like that Ben Franklin "Join or Die" one, or Honoré Daumier's Gargantua. I do think we spent a bit too long on these, like we didn't need to write papers analyzing what are really pretty simple cartoons. But the cartoons as I remember had a bit more historical and political (at the time) significance than like a Ben Garrison cartoon or something. Also some teachers might see them as a good way to illustrate what certain people thought about political events at the time.
yeah might've been also my US history teacher wasn't afraid to be critical of the US. Not a leftist by any means, but he did teach history in a way that wasn't complete propaganda, and he did provide us with some solid insights.
eh, introducing people to the idea that they are being fed propaganda is important. some people are really, really dumb and just take shit as fact cuz it's printed on paper or said on tv (and cuz they want to believe it).
eh, introducing people to the idea that they are being fed propaganda is important.
idk, i think pointing to political cartoons as a big source of propaganda is misleading and more likely to obfuscate the actually important propaganda. there are probably plenty of people who basically believe that political cartoons are the only propaganda they'll be seeing, and that if what you're reading isn't literally beating you over the head with a 2x4 engraved with whatever political opinion the author believes, that there's no "politics" in the writing and its just straight facts or whatever
Yeah lol in the 8th grade but it was all like anti-capitalist stuff and how workers hold up society and all that and now that I follow that teacher on Instagram I realize he is based
Yes, it was really weird. I think it's in the curriculum to show how "amazing and free" the US is because people can draw shitty cartoons.
It's really weird
Jokes on them, your kids will learn about the political memes you see every day in Buy-N-Large's Virtual BezosSchool™, but only the fascist ones.
Yeah, I don't remember who Boss Tweed was, but I remember he was taken down by political cartoons. Or at least so my history book claimed.
You could do an in depth analysis of all the weird sexual shit going on in Ben Garrison's drawings.
Disagree. Political cartoons used to be print-only and had the potential to radicalize people. The problem is your teacher is supposed to discuss 19th century political cartoons and not internet-era cartoons where the barrier to entry is nil.
Here's a random lesson plan I found.
http://www.usd116.org/ProfDev/AHTC/lessons/Garcia09/Garcia09.htm
I dread the future when Ben Garrison cartoons are used for source analysis questions on history exams...
Yup, but the only thing I took away from it was that propaganda poster from the Nazis about the giant monster that's supposed to be America started to haunt my dreams
Gonna have to make sure that thing's not hiding under my bed tonight.
I think you're just young and grew up with the internet. You could have similar disdain for political TV and radio ads. For their time, they were the absolute sauce.
Yeah I actually think they are an ok way to explain some of the political dynamics at the time....
