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In a hilarious scene from the now classic (i.e. old) film, Being There, Peter Sellers, as the simpleton gardener and soon-to-be U.S. president says, “I like to watch.”  And by that he means television.  The woman in the bedroom with him, however, assumes he means he likes to watch . . . sex.  The amorous female presumes the character Peter played had a peeper side.  In terms of the humor – maybe you had to be there.

Me, I like to read.  And not about sex.  Not usually.  I like to read about all sorts of things.  That is not to say, however, that I never seek and enjoy visual media.  Whether or not a single image is “worth a thousand words,” pictures, drawings, paintings, videos and even cartoons will excite brain regions that mere words cannot.

Consider this example, from the online cartoon, Jesus and Mo:

Although the drawings are far from artistic, and they vary little from pane to pane, the images really do add something beyond what the words alone convey.  In my opinion.

Speaking of the cartoon, you may have noticed that the title contains not the full name of the Muslim prophet.  Why?  I don’t know the author’s motives; but my guess would be there are at least two reasons.

1. “Mo” is funnier.  Jesus and Mo has a more cartoon-ish sound than Jesus and Mohammad.

2. If you couple Mohammad with an image you commit a crime.  At least according to some versions of the Islamic religions. The punishment for the crime?  It depends where you live.  In this country, potential censorship.  In others?  Death.

Yes, the cartoon is funny.  Mostly.  Humor provides a needed respite from the pain of living in an crazy world.  To censor and criminalize words and images . . . that’s insane.

Related posts:

1. Heretical Cartoon Humor

I just love this strip.  Funny, irreligious, insightful.

A statement by a Supreme Court justice comes to mind: I know pornography when I see it. Similarly, heresy and humor are largely, if not fully, in the eye of the beholder.  As a liberal atheist, in defining either pornography or heresy, I would probably define these differently than other people.  The question of outlawing one or the other can depend on what definition a person uses.

Should visual images ever be outlawed?  While I can think of images I consider highly offensive and immoral — starting but not limited to sex acts with children — I don’t know if the viewing or the possessing of such images should be illegal.  I really don’t know.  Words and deeds are two separate things, and we currently tend to group images closer to words than we do to deeds.  Should that change?

Of course, there is a big difference between images that display violence of some type against innocent individuals and violence against other targets.  What about images that merely offend one’s values?  At this point I have come to no comfortable answer.  But in such cases I always opt to err on the side of freedom.

While I would nearly instantaneously amend the schoolyard rhyme about sticks and stones to, sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me, I’m not so certain about images.  Images are significantly more provocative, and hence motivating, than words.  They can more readily influence behavior.  And individuals might get hurt.  But I draw the line, as do many democrats, at protecting the powerless: children and minority groups in real physical danger . . .  As for the powerful and the non-human, have-at-it.  Corporations, nations, mythical creatures, gods.  Go ahead and crack an iron pipe, in words or images, across their knees.  For they will feel no pain.

What do you think?

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1. Images that Speak