Visual Satire

In Chapter 26 of Fiero, entitled "The Limits of Reason", the reader is introduced to some of the reactions of Enlightenment, such as the satirical writings of Voltaire and Swift. While both incredibly important and influential in their time, I would argue that the paintings of William Hogarth were much more indicative of the direction in which social commentary would move over the next few hundred years.  Even during his lifetime, Hogarth’s visual representations of satirical writings were immensely popular (to the extent that Fiero implies piracy of Hogarth’s paintings helped prompt the French Parliament to pass its first copyright law) for several reasons. For one, the literacy rate, while increasing during the Enlightenment, was nowhere near as high as today, making visual satires much more effective to the common person. Convenience was also a factor; it takes much less time to absorb the social message of a picture than that of a novel, or even a pamphlet. As technology advanced out of the Enlightenment, the same convenience factor that facilitated the popularity enjoyed by Hogarth’s paintings helped to facilitate numerous other forms of visual commentary such as political radio and television programs. However, I would argue that visual stimulation, while undoubtedly more powerful and emotionally shocking than merely reading words on a page, is, in the end, insufficient to fully communicate a message without further information. While less true in terms of Hogarth’s unbelievably detailed paintings, one only has to browse the Internet for five minutes to see the extent to which the trend he started has progressed. Complex ideas or commentaries have been reduced to a few key catch phrases (“You didn’t build that,” for example. This trend is everywhere, from actual ads sponsored by politicians, to the scripts of political analysis shows, to the simple internet memes like this one:

This is what the trend started by Hogarth has come to. Instead of real, constructive, political dialogue, we get partisanship and plug words, and a refusal to see the other side as anything but the enemy.  Not that intelligent satirists don’t continue to exist, but the ones with thoughtful satires cleverly making use of irony, overstatements, and understatements get drowned out by the masses, whose idea of political humor is this:

 

Am I overreacting (entirely possible, I’m absolutely exhausted writing this, and I tend to get cranky when tired)? I don’t mean to sit and bemoan the collapse of political institutions, because there are several bright spots, and intelligent commentators on both sides. I only wish the spotlight was on them instead of the more convenient “satirists” who make their points with one liners with little-to-no-context.  So please, fellow Searchers, post a hundred comments proving me wrong. In this case, I could use it.