it is a dilemma when i show you some pictures that i had to deal with. so let me start by reading you the beginning of the controversy because it tells you how i got into this project and forecast what is to come. . .

and that's something was a cartoon, -- at the time, i thought that the staff's anger had to do primarily with the fact they they thought the cartoon in question was politically incorrect or in the "argo" of the day not pc, no matter that the character the leading practitioner. no matter it was a powerful work of art indeed. that was the problem. it all started with a phone call from david whom i had known as a former contributor to monokl which she mentioned. we call a leisurely of political satire. it came out twice a year. i found it as a student in the yale law school in the late 1950's. david was known as the realist painter. known to the media and the intellectual community as the

genius responsible for the artfully witty but wicked caricature that helped define the look of the prepretentious new york review of book since the fowbdzing. david called because he did a caricature of henry kissinger on assignment for the review which the editor felt was too strong. they were going to publish it later. david wasn't sure. he wanted to publish it right away. the cartoon, as he told me, shed kissinger in bed on top and the world in the form of a naked woman underneath him. she had a globe are her head should have been and kissinger was schooling her -- i'm quoting david there, under an american flag blanket. were we interested, david, i said, i will get in -- it will get in all sorts of trouble. of course i'm interested in. why will it get in trouble, with

the staff? i said all kinds of trouble with the staff. i said i don't know, i know it will. it arrived an hour later. it was as it expected. i describe it rather than describe it to you. i'm going to show it to you. [laughter] think about that for a minute. this is one of the most brilliant. two hours later, pee tension landed on my dpesk signed by -- desk signed by twenty five people in my office thought em flied only twenty three. many of the signature were followed by little comments, sex ist wrote why isn't he doing it -- [inaudible] asked another. i called an office meeting. it was important to keep three thicks in mind. first, a lot i took the staff's

concern seriously. would be no vote at the end. you shouldn't decide questions of the esthetic by majority vote. lucky for no one asked why not. [laughter] second, the work had been offered to us on a take it or leave it basis. while anyone was free to say what he or she pleased suggested to change the drawing would have no effect. and third, because i had already told him we intended to use the drawing though the magazine could change the mind. i thought that i had a decision not to use it would have a -- the most articulate staff objection that was the nation was supposed to fight against stereo type and the cartoon reinforced the steer owe type that sex was duty and active male on top does to an active woman on the bottom. the my favorite moment came when

chris for said he -- he was thought it was not an act of sex. an act of rape. kissinger rave advantaging the world. if you look at the woman's hands replied the young woman. it seems to be gripping the mattress what could be the grip of passion. christopher leaned over and gripped the young woman by her hand and said, trust me, it's not the grip of passion. there it was. [laughter] i asked david to join us. as a characterture dealt in stereo types one is rerpding, for example, her of a minority race.

how do you make the comment -- it's the cartoonist job to play off the stereo type. david being david said the wrong things. when asked why the man had to be on top, for example, e replied in a room that included people of various sexual preference. i'm showing what normal people do. after he spent two years, i asked whe was probably a delay protest over my general consult as much

as i might have where my generation sensitivity to matter of sexual politics. looking back i can see in underestimating the power of lavigne's unpc image i may have internalized the view of many art critics, art historians enwho have over the years dismissed them as fundamentally not serious, inconsequential, irrelevant, marginal, frivolous, immoral, and silly. but it was not until 2002 2004 when the newspaper posted published a disufns cartoon and i describe what happened. mohammed they thought to focus on the power of cartoon as cartoons. after all, from asia to europe, hundreds of thousands of muslims took to the street to protest em

sassy were shut down, ambassadors were recalled, and pakistan protests burned danish lands. more than 100 people were killed, another 500 were injured, danish goods were boycotted. the cartoons forced to go in to hiding. suffice to say that the emotional response of millions of muslims as the world over to the danish mohammed in retrospect may be to step that the nation's staff reaction to lavigne's kissinger cartoon had as much to do with the medium as the mess age. i can go on. the point -- that's how i got involved in this. i started to go back in the past and reresearch. what in the past, i discovered that it was -- which was news to me and the publish was going to prison -- i'm going show you,

this is something that the publishers also a caricature did. it showed the king fill leap as famously as a pear. which was also known as a fat head. it was an insulting images. he was put on trial for the cartoon, and it's his testimony, at the trial, was is worth reading, i can't find. i'm note going to read to you. i'm going to show you what he if in the cartoon of louis. and he did get thrown to prison for two years for doing the cartoon of the king and the form of in the shape of a pear. so it's -- i am finding the testimony. because it's worth hearing.

and just go back to it it's not just these guys who got in trouble. more recently the leading palestinian cartoonist was murdered on the streets of london for his cartoons and they still have figured out whether it was the mo sad who did it because of the antiisraeli cartoon on -- he had had done insulting cartoons with the commission someone to assassinate him. all the way up, whether it's punishment by censorship, punishment by prison, punishment by -- you came it. cartoonist have been singled out and punished and over the years. but they're dealing with humor. here is the way they defended

his renner decision of louis. he said he was tried twice. it was at the first trial. the first looks like louis philippe but the last looks like the first. yet, this last one is a pear. where are you to draw the line? when you condemn the first drawing, in this case you should have to condemn the last as well. -- you sentence a mechanic two years in jail because he demonstrates a pear. in this case you have to convict all caricature, which depict the head to the head which is narrow at the top and broad at the bottom. i will promise you, you'll have more than enough to do. as the malice of artists will find a great amount of pleasure

in demonstrating this portion any variety variety of broad circumstance. then sew see how you will have raised the role dignity. see what reasonable limits you will have placed on liberty of the crayon. liberty as say rid as all others. it sports thousand of artists and printers. liberty, which is my right and which you cannot deprive me of even if i was the one to use it. this is one of many different ways in which cartoonists have attempted to deal with attempt to stop them from doing what they know how to do. one of the questions that i asked myself when i was doing this, what it going on here? why do people get so upset about in so called medium. and, in the introduction to the book and structure of the book

is a long introduction about 75 pages. i exam inthree theories bun is the cob tent people get upset because of the content. what else is going on there. seconds the image. third, they get upset because of the way the cartoon functions as a stimulus and the brain is a response and has to do with neuro science which is conducted some experts on that. let my say a little word. the artists themselves have their own theory. let me just -- if this is the work of a great british cartoonist name ralph steadyman. he has a theory of his own, which is a quite original and important on vision. it goes back to the problem of writing using words to describe pictures.

in stedman's ink-splattered work. it's easily identifiable. it resists para phrase. in fact, when asked when does he think cartoons deright-of-way the power, he said for the only thing of value is that you cannot say. it's what you cannot say. that's where a drawing is so important. that's the value of drawing. you can do something with a drawing that you couldn't say in words. he also said -- [inaudible] a experience with the david that you could -- no matter what words you use to describe kissinger's policy in the caribbean, the drawing came about because of a report on the caribbean that kissinger had chaired you couldn't capture what he captured with that picture. and another example of this is

fallen to the history books is another lavigne picture of lyndon johnson showing the scar in the form vietnam. one of the scars suggest about cartoon and caricature, they can live on long after their initial exposure. and they have a permanent sei in the culture that words sometimes do and sometimes don't. and in that respect, to me, they are like poetry. they both resist para phrase. they capture a lot in a short way. so how does one deal with the question of -- next. how does one deal with this question of using words to answer a cartoon? i finally found the answer to

that question. might i just put to you, but the answer is not in words. here is the answer of how one deals with the paradox of using words to answer a cartoon. this is a a -- [inaudible] -- it says a lot. i can't say what it says. i don't have the words to say if. so that's it. if one takes the first serious, a content theory that people get upset because of the content, the most famous american cartoonist was thomas who stimulated -- this is one of his drawings or who stole the people's money. they are -- [inaudible] and he famously said of this -- that he said i don't care what they write about me.

get rid of the damn pictures. and he understood something that very true about him and about the force of these pictures and as a great irony fitting

i'm going to show you three or four pictures. i was aware of art young who did this jesus christ reward chris wanted poster back when they try to put him in prison for doing that, they sued the masses and they eventually put it out of business. they claimed it violated e espionage act. i had seen art young's pictures. i had seen the picture when i grew up. my father showed me. look at the stars.

i had come to admire. i come to admire the cartoon from the masses. whey didn't understand until i went to the cartoon collection at ohio state university was that where they have the full back issue of the old masses when you go through them issued by issue. the picture overwhelm the words. it's as if the words illustrate the picture. they have a power that is a start ling. i want to read from you the manifest tow. it expresses the joy they took in doing what they do. and i love the manifest tow. here is what they say. a revolutionary and reform magazine. a magazine with a sense of humor and no respect for the

respectable frank, arrogant, and pert pertinent. and conciliate nobody. but the thing it did it with pictures that it it with art and better than anyone else at the time. so i want to go from there. to show you one more. to give another artist theory different from stedman's theory and different from the content theory and different from the image theory. this is the artist david lo. did these amazing portrait of adolf hitler and every time hitler one came out, hitler would hit the roof and have a

fit. let me read what happened. and low's explanation as to why. in 1928, chris coauthored an article in the british journal of medical psychologist they observed the portrait task force to record the character, the essence of a man in a heroic sense. the caricature had an opposing goal. he didn't seek the present form, but the perfect deformity to penetrate through the outward appearance and the inner being and the ugliness and -- let me find lo's comment. what he basically said is that

dictators, the reason that hitler got so upset by these drawings was that dictators don't mind being portrayed as bloody monsters who are putting down everybody and and showing hoe powerful they are. what object to is that the -- they are. aerohoo is but one example of famous cartoon as you can see it. so it's a -- a second theory. the third perspective on the thing is the what i think of a a neuroscience theory. this one is looks at the cartoon

as the stimulus in the brain as the response. and in this one, let me read you a -- there was not only a whole new field of neuroscience that proports to explain the way art effects the brain. there was an article sunday in the review section by eric a neuro scientist from colombia. there's a new field for neuro esthetic. i'm suspicious of it. nevertheless, they conduct experiments -- let me read you about one of them, and one of this experiment lead to something they call the pink shift effect. pek shift effect. it's a concept that involves from experiment with all things chicks. because the chicks are entirely dependent on their mothers for

food, when they see a yellow bird beak with a dot at the end they beg for food by pecking at the dot. it took a insure row scientist to discover when the chicks are exposed to fake beak, it wouldn't stick with a red dot at the end. they pick vigorously at that. two, and the more red dots the more avidly they pick. it comes as a result of shifting the stimulus more red dots hence the pek shift effect. the connection between the phenomena and cartoon and caricature is said to lie in the area of the brain involved in facial recognition it's no surprise since they emphasize the same feature we use to distinguish one face from another. they think the caricature works on the same principle of the p,k

shift effect. consider the way the skilled cartoonist introduces a caricature of the famous face. say richard nixon. what he does unconsciously is take the ampleg, sub trajt the average from nixon's face to get the difference between nixon's face and all the others and amplify the others to introduce a caricature. the final result is a drug even more nixon-like than the original. they argue that if the chicks had an art gallery they would hang a long stick with red dots and worship it and pay millions of dollars for it and call it a picasso. anyway, the citation of nixon, to me, is interesting because the great cartoonist doug once said that nixon looked like the policies that he was the cartoonist what marilyn monroe

was to sex. his nose sold you he was going to innovated cambodia. i want to just -- i don't know where we're on time. we're running a little short so -- [inaudible] so who i already quoted who is beneath crit sick and psychologist, he put the caricature in the business of myth tholings it -- making the mythical with the real. they create the fusion that fusion that amount that same convincing to the emotional mind. example of the cabinet minister parasite. to make it variably as prime

minister which i have in the book but not up here as a let me -- we look at other people's theories. i'm going to show you other cartoon in the book. if you want to know, i'll tell yacht story that go with them. they got to another lot of trouble. they got in to trouble with the gay community. he did it when a book came out saying abraham lincoln might be gay. he was attacked for suggesting that to be gay meant there was a woman inside your body, and he wrote it very smart. i wish i could read you, if you are interested in. here nixon coming out of the

suer. it's one of the permanent images that helped to bring nixon down. watergate was part of it. it contributed to it. it. the danish mohammad at the time they cause "the new york times" editorial saying they weren't going to publish the caricature because they were easily you could find them on the internet and as a result, there was no need to publish them. and that because you can describe them and look them up, if you need to. what the work of art or cartoon does. when it came time to where are

we going include them in the book or not, my publisher was worried that book bookstores that people come in to bookstores and the book sellers at risk. they might be mobbed, attacked, they were worried that amazon wouldn't carry the book. so we had long discussions about this and in the -- and in i print the reason i give in assignment. which of the following is true these caricature are not included here. a., you find them on the interntd anywhere. b., because the publisher was worried that am dison wouldn't care the 0 book. c. because far be it from me to put the lives of others at risk. d. they had done a better job than any of these cartoonist.

and the correct answer is then e. was something else and f. was all the above. f. was the correct answer. i include the cartoon of -- [inaudible] what it is is you see the artist's hand on this huge pen similar. what he's writing, i must not depict mohammad. i must not draw mohammed. he write it is 100 times. by the end he's drawn mohammed. and it seems to me, it says it all better than one could say by showing it. so that's -- those are some of the issues that come up in the course of compiling this book. i want to leave you with a question i have for myself. and take your questions and answer them. namely, i'm a person who is a card carrying member of the american civil liberty union.

.. >> you love me to go back to

that? could. just a second. the basic fact is a world-class cartoonist wrote the article that said the new book had come out. let me read you what he said and what he said to the people who we heard from lots of people who is a gay

activist and friend to says you just don't get it. the long ago disprove the notion of a man who loves a man really wants to be a woman and this is to be from another era and that is sealed their response by the magazine but to put it sensibly they just don't get it i said i think i get it but whatever one thinks about grossman and the decision seems the fact that the caricature was a niche how could it have been otherwise and here's what grossman roche so we read

the review of "the new york times" with the intimate world of abraham lincoln and they said they ran through the mind rendering me helpless and the impoverished landscape it passes for true inspiration and i knew that gay men are not necessarily effeminate cross dressers are bearded ladies but i could not let that prevent me from having my last. said cheap infantile joke or so i thought there could now i hereby apologize to anyone i have offended. somebody asked me about the pitcher and a contemporary symbol of lincoln at although now i read he may not have split rails of now i thought it would make my pitcher more edgy. those were tough calls. there we are.

any ithers? >> with the phenomenon of the atf to be synonymous when smith on a or a the war i thought all over facebook around 2012 during the election that they have this power along with the image did cheat macro for with a pitcher of people in the corporate board room laughing and then i said supply-side economics actually works. >> it is a good point* and there are faces that becomes symbolic of much larger but

the visualizations and of that and images is a talent that infuriates because if they don't infuriates you is strikes them as unfair and the fact it dips into stereotypes that are sometimes racial jute do with a dignity in gives that's outside this medium rare defiant the best cartoon today? >> go to my grandchildren.

go to "the new yorker." with the first campaign choo-choo's showing obama doing the of this pub trusted terrorist car. to caricature there right wing view of the obama view and whole lot of readers to a kit to be a statement that the obama is said terrorist but tina brown on a couple of locations some of which i have in here, it to me me, whenever you feel you have to run the explanation is a double problem because

they should make viewers figure out what they mean. if you suspect they might be misunderstood. that is one of the fax it did not help tina brown or "the new yorker" or save it from the criticism. it used to be playboy a did cartoons which were funny and some were sexist but they don't do it any more and with a gift they used to do it the realist would run some gray curtains but there are great cartoonists and a

bench of the other up and coming characters with the "wall street journal" and the first two-thirds it that could have been happier to be faulted it is not the way he put it but what he left out and when he left out was a number of these to operate and some of them on paper paper, some of them on line, some of them with new media so the art is not going away. that can be your next one. >> you are allowed. >> like the art of controversy. a lot of what you have shown

no isn't shown because of the increased awareness for better or for worse of political correctness. what about cartooning? it seems it is wary to strike that. >> they think cartoonist for many conventional or old-fashioned cartoonist to buy a condition were not are worried it is a disappearing profession there are fewer people who make their living from pen and ink cartoon spurred by a agree with you not that for better or worse but you cannot be worried about that and make your statements to the world of your a cartoonist or a politician or anything else

you have to take the consequences. and the old monocle cartoonist starting out as an assistant to then they yorker cartoon editor he would never draw a black person because he did not want to be in the business of drawing fat lips and stereotypes of black people to contribute to this problem. he then came up with the idea of a comic strip of the black souchong -- shoeshine and it weighed move from modern jazz quartet or a booker t. washington.

it was very funny he could turn into the super hero and it wasn't a stereotypical so there were ways around it. but it is there. >> i was going to ask about that. the mark of a free society to allow people to engage in this cartooning. because those images can become dangerous with the characters of jews during world war ii and how that incited hatred and violence i wonder if you would comment on that. >> and sorry i did not show it to have it cartoonists they would have hoped to

noses and slobbering and fat and these images were on the cover and in those days to be on every street corner says the image of the jews for the germans and ultimately there's several things that happened there. a and interestingly the editor was the only noncombatant from nuremberg. and i don't believe in capital punishment if it is a lot and you have to do it so i don't sink you have to do everything it is the matters of taste and judgment.

i have a strong presumption despite the fact that there are lines and it is important to recognize there are cases you don't want to go beyond them. the danish mahomet is interesting because if you know, the whole constituency is deeply offended you do the revision did not have the right to that of other people obey their religion but there is a time when the this lee disrespecting it you should bear the consequences of that. it is a complicated issue. >> that is the term that i find offensive. it is as if the left had a hammer lock on the imagery. it is untrue.

it isn't like doll line across but it is fundamentally false that has nothing to do with homosexuality. it is backwards and not because i am offended that this is the work of the enact think your. it does not exempt you from the right to be criticized in for you to be able to publish a you don't. and you choose to publish rethink is the smartest and most insightful and therefore wittiest view of the world. this just is not true. >> i worked seven years on late-night. we would run it. he is a bonehead. and it seems to me the notion we offended people as if you cannot manifest the hackwork and cliches.

>> i graduated from the nation by then but was happy to defend the decision to publish it and although i agree with your description of what it means to be gay or funny nevertheless it did not deign grossman had the right to do this and don't think he is that have quit did something that made you want to stop and look at what is going on. but i understand what you are saying and i respect the people. >> is someone find something funny the that is unarguable. but ultimately it depends on

being funny but that in itself has to be true. it so it has to be both. >> so you can say it is up, about but some of which agree with you with some of them don't. >> i don't say that but you are i am interested in your comments i will not burden you or the others with some of the ones. >> which did that feel like? >> i had to argue if my

publisher that i should have a photograph because that is what the press picks up by bush to have them run that caricature itself but i have been caricatured on a number of locations and i take it as flattery. because politicians want to buy them and hang them on their walls. i don't think that is with rolf. [laughter] the is intentionally selby is wise and in touch so there is a place they don't want to do that.

>> i am thinking about the other side. that is separate entirely but they have so many controversial issues like climate change with the choice that led him to be contentious. there must be great cartoonist on the other side. to have those cartoons coming out from the right wing extremists, who wins? howdy you answer those? >> the short answer is said to know the answer to that

question but i would think it would have something to do with it but the smarter and more profound thinkers had something to do with the. and nothing would make me more interested among whether failings' i am a boxing fan to see the olympics of cartoonist against each other on both sides of the issue. so numbing there are more than two sides to the issue that doesn't mean fullsize are right. good question. >>. >> during the course of your talk, my mind was wandering along the lines has the meaning of the word cartoon changed?

who were the first cartoonist? did they really describe what a cartoon is? >> good question. with my own research i found bernie need who did the first character of the pope who has a little bit of history on the word but i don't have faith in my own knowledge of where it came from. i think the meaning of that word will change from what we call cartoon say caricatures. good questions.

>> victor davis hansen who has just come out with his newest book the five great commanders wars from ancient greece to iraq, dr. hansen would you mean when you talk about a safe war? >> nothing is over until it is over. there are situations in consentual societies where the leadership has said it is a bad idea or we can't win and people in peacetime who are not spectacular become known as shadows. and they have a particular profile from history and

look at the four different me and say it is not lost and in fact, we can win it and we're having a hard time to convince people because by definition they are team players. what are the other two generals? so that they could restore the entire mediterranean empire and my favorite was ridgway who was 100 days from korea and got us back up to the 308th parallel everyone wanted to evacuate to go back to japan. >> did you have to narrow the list? >> i had people as diverse like richard the lionheart

lionheart, curtis lemay and olcott type of figure than i thought trying to be systematic to be impressionistic that i thought was the most dynamic and controversial to use it as a template to say they are applicable. >> they are not cowboys but even as scholars to garner little notice to use their time in obscurity and systematically review contemporary tactics andrew dray was on the cover of "time" magazine and he has a gun here but they did not understand he was studying the tactics the language of career if you look at sherman y yield of gold

billy sherman was a magnificent student to understand the psychology of the plantation owner. so to make a synonymous idea they're like malls to candles they are over serious students and petraeus was part of our popular culture through 2008 with a ph.d. was a serious student strategy political science at the popular persona was not of the scholar they adopt persona's necessary to fool us into thinking they shot the place up.

but they were waiting there all along. >> host: you say they're like a moth to a flame? >> even the careers because they do burn out. and after saving athens the allosaur is ended up as a beggar on the streets of constantinople and even after saving victory in war war, people did not like sherman calling him a terrorist. david petraeus does not see fit the model because now all the sudden in the incident started to appear. >> host: was general patton or general macarthur on the list to begin with?

>> no. the reason i is because in the past i have written so if you mention the name ridgway or bella sorus people don't know who you're talking about the colin powell nobody knew who they were. but you in the military over this man more than any other but nobody had known what had happened to him. he faded away. so it is out of the collective attention span spinet that is just a little taste of the newest book is save your general's is the title you can see many videos from victor davis hanson talking about his books as well as a longer version of him in

fresno, california talking about this book. this is booktv on c-span2.

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>> so many people toned pigeon hole now daze, are you on the right or left. and this is just silly. life is much more complicated than that. most people are neither right or left, they're just ordinary folk who are getting on with living their life and who see the world as it is, and what i've done for the last quarter century is, as a journalist, tell is also i see it to be. which means o