
woke
-
Roald Dahl words changed

The cartoon illustrates the bowderising or censorship of the text of Roald Dahl children’s books. The changes include the removal of words such as ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’.
-
“On the right side of history” cartoon

A cartoon about the expression “On the right side of history”.
The cartoon hopefully points out the nonsense of the expression along with its preposterous self-regard by applying it to the Taliban, who I’m sure think that they are right.
In fact, beware those who have the over-confidecnceof thinking that they are “on the right side of history”!
Drawn: 27th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a940
-
Decolonisation and repatriation of museum collections

A cartoon about the move to repatriate items from museum collections.
Cartoon about the growing demands for museums to reassess their collections in the light of issues around decolonisation, racism and other social justice tenets.
The cartoon specifically highlights the concept of guilt as directed towards museums and other cultural institutions in the West due to the perceived unique nature of the West’s history of imperialism and colonisation.
Here in the Uk the phenomenon can be observed inn the debates concerning the Elgin Marbles and Benin Bronzes in the British Museum and in the overall philosophy of the curators of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.Drawn: 4th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a936
-
Unconscious prejudice cartoon

A cartoon about unconscious racism, sexism, homophobia or transphobia.
The cartoon shows a social gathering at which a person is wearing a T-shirt with the message:
“I’m one the lookout for unconscious racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia”.
Everyone at the gathering is giving a wide berth to the T-shirt wearer.
As a result the T-shirt wearer is seeing the other people as racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic.One of the points of the cartoon is that if you look for something you may see it even of it isn’t there, especially if you are observing through the filter of ideology.
Another point of the cartoon is the divisive nature of excessive ideological zeal – in this case the way that the people at the gathering shy away from interacting with the T-shirt wearer for fear of being over-scrutinised.Drawn: 8th January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a935
-
Empowered by ideology – cartoon

A cartoon showing political activists or protesters who feel empowered and motivated by their ideology.
The cartoon is a comment on the way that people who hold ideological beliefs feel a sense of empowerment, motivation and identity (If you’ve ever been on a protest march you’ll know the feeling).
This can have the downside of blinding them to alternative ways of seeing the world.
Drawn: 28th December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a933
-
Return the Elgin Marbles – cartoon

A cartoon about the campaign to return the Elgin Marbles, or Parthenon Sculptures, to Greece.
It’s argued that the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece because of the much debated manner in which they were removed from Greece by Lord Elgin.
This cartoon points out that the Parthenon sculptures were created in the first place by a civilisation that was heavily reliant on slaves.
In the current political climate there have been many statues linked to slavery that have been pulled down.
The comment about returning the sculptures to the bottom of the Aegean is a reference to the throwing of a statue of Sir Edward Colton in to the sea in Bristol here in the UKDrawn: 8th January 2023
Cartoon reference number: a934
-
Woke ‘useful idiots’

A cartoon about woke fellow travellers.
The cartoon’s caption reads:
“Did you know that there’s a name for the well-meaning people who, in a misguided attempt to be tolerant and respectful, promote the authoritarian and censorious ambitions of the woke movement?
Sleepwokers.A pun on the word sleepwalkers.
The term useful idiot refers to naive followers of a political cause who aren’t fully aware of the harmful nature of the cause. It is often associated with the followers of communism the mid twentieth century.Drawn: December 2022
Cartoon reference number: a930
-
Ban humour!

A cartoon about censorship and proscriptions on humour.
The cartoon reflects an aspect of the “hate speech” laws (which state that anything that may cause offence is prohibited).
Humour by its very nature frequently sets up a tension that may be misinterpreted by the more earnest and humourless amongst us (he says, patronisingly), opening it up to be a target for censorship.A cartoon about censorship, censoriousness, woke earnestness.
Drawn: September 2022
Cartoon reference number: a999
-
Shame on you – woke shaming cartoon
Woke shaming cartoon
A cartoon about the tendency among some of the woke to attempt to humiliate and belittle those who think differently to them by ‘shaming’ them. The process of shaming is a convenient way to dismiss other points of view without engaging with it, and of dismissing the person whose view it is.
A cartoon about wokeness, tolerance, intolerence, shaming, shame culture. Published in the Critic magazine, June 2021.
Drawn: October 2020
Cartoon reference number: a900
-
Eton public school and its traditions cartoon
Modernising Eton cartoon.
A cartoon about attempts to modernise the attitudes at Eton College by the current head master, Simon Henderson,
His resolve has led to the sacking of Eton master Will Knowland on the grounds that a lecture that he prepared on the subject of patriarchy was deemed to be objectionable.Part of the irony of the situation is that Eton is a hugely influential boys-only school steeped in out-dated tradition. If any part of the British education system can be accused of promoting the patriarchy this is it.
A cartoon about patriarchy, tradition, misogyny, free speech, progressive views and political correctness.
Drawn: Dec 2020
Cartoon reference number: a884
-
Eton sacking cartoon
Eton sacking cartoon.
A cartoon about the modernising of the attitudes at Eton College, which has led to the sacking of Eton master Will Knowland following a lecture that he prepared about patriarchy and related subjects which was deemed to be objectionable.
The current head master of Eton is Simon Henderson, who has resolved to make the attitudes within the school more in line with current trends.
Part of the irony of the situation is that Eton is a hugely influential boys-only school. If any part of the British education system can be accused of promoting the patriarchy this is it.
A cartoon about patriarchy, tradition, misogyny, free speech, progressive views and political correctness.
Drawn: Dec 2020
Cartoon reference number: a883
-
Racial politics, slavery and statue toppling – cartoon
The politics of race and the toppling of statues.
This cartoon illustrates the way that the current (2020) wave of protests and campaigns to remove statues on the grounds that the people depicted had links with the slave trade oversimplifies history, reducing it to a single issue, racism.
The cartoon makes use of two meanings of ‘black and white’ – one being the polarisation or over-simplification of things into binary issues and the other being the categorisation of people as racially being black or white.
The removal of statues is part of the campaign by Black Lives Matter and other groups such as the Rhodes Must Fall campaign.
Drawn: 11th July 2020
Cartoon reference number: a819
-
Philip Guston kkk controversy – art gallery self-censorship cartoon
Philip Guston kkk paintings in gallery self-censorship controversy.
The cartoon depicts Guston’s Klansman paintings being removed from an exhibition.
A cartoon about the controversy over the proposed postponement of a Philip Guston exhibition containing some of his Ku Klux Klan paintings. The exhibition was set to be staged in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Tate Modern in London, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston.
The decision to postpone the exhibition due to the current social climate is interpreted by some as being an act of self-censorship.
Drawn: 4th October 2020
Cartoon reference number: a856
-
Decolonising the National Trust cartoon
Stately homes and their links to slavery cartoon.
Decolonisation of the National Trust.At the present moment (2020) the subject of racism and slavery is very high on the cultural/political agenda of some sections of society, as evidenced by the rise of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.
Large sections of the establishment cultural landscape are being reanalysed in the light of race, slavery and colonialisation.
This cartoon is about the fact that recently the National Trust (the custodian of many stately homes in Britain) has started to redisplay the contents of some of its properties in the light of historical links to slavery, coupled with the news that the trust is thinking of concentrating its future efforts on its work that isn’t linked to historical buildings (The National Trust was partly created specifically to care for these buildings).
The cartoon shows a scenario in which stately homes are actually destroyed because of their links to slavery (links which may or may not be quite tenuous or may have been quite normal for the times), much in the way that parts of the contemporary anti-racist movement has toppled statues of establishment figures who had links to slavery.
Will future generations thank them, or will it be viewed as a form of vandalistic iconoclasm?
Drawn: September 2020
Cartoon reference number: a850
-
Historical crimes against contemporary social values – wokeness cartoon
Being accused of historical crimes against contemporary social values.
This cartoon is about the tendency within parts of contemporary culture, especially woke culture, to criticise people for attitudes that they held in the past that are now thought of (within those parts of contemporary culture) to be reprehensible.
These attitudes may be ones that are generally agreed to be outdated or they may be ones that are
A cartoon about wokeness, political correctness, moral purity, Orwellian attitudes, political purity, social values, contemporary mores, intolerance, tolerance, thought crime.
Drawn:1st Aug 2020
Cartoon reference number: a827
-
Museums and art galleries removing art and exhibits due to student grievance – cartoon

A cartoon about hypercritical student attitudes demanding the removal (deaccessioning) of artworks from galleries.
A cartoon about woke culture and the trend for students’ grievances and dissatisfactions to be translated into action, such as in the form no platforming or the demands for statues of out-of-favour people to be removed.
The action is often seen by some as self-righteous, self-indulgent, censorious and intolerant (ironically, as the students often think that they are acting for the greater benefit of others).
The cartoon shows the danger of the students adopting a feeling of over-entitlement and thus taking their attitudes out into the wider world beyond their colleges.
The inspiration for this image was a news story about students disapproving of a sculpture by Henry Moore, and demanding that it wasn’t displayed on their university campus.The cartoon was drawn in 2016, but it seems even more relevant in 2020 with the woke culture on the ascendency. There are lots of statue removing campaigns going on at the moment (August, 2020) and there’s a bit of a campaign to have a mural by Rex Whistler in Tate Britain removed because a detail of it depicts a black person in chains.
In 2018 a painting, Hylas and the Nymphs by J W Waterhouse, was removed temporarily from Manchester Art Gallery as part of an art event by Sonia Boyce as a comment on what some people view as inappropriate art for the modern age.Drawn: 2016
Cartoon reference: a734
-
Culturally determined world views – cartoon

A cartoon about culturally determined world views
The idea that different cultures will use whatever methods are at their disposal to reinforce their established philosophy of how the world works.An observation about theological determinism, cultural bias in science, cognitive dissonance, pseudoscience
The cartoon shows a nonspecific non-western culture planning to build their own large hadron collider (LHC) to obtain results that are consistent with their cultural heritage.
It is an illustration about the misrepresentation of science or the lack of use of the scientific method.Update: The cartoon was drawn in 2010, however it is possibly more relevant now, in 2023, with the rise of anticolonialism and antiscience thinking (which is the concept that science is a white, western construct). For instance I’ve just read an article by Richard Dawkins about the fact that in New Zealand the government is currently instigating a scheme in which science in schools will have to be taught with the Maori ‘Ways of Knowing’ (Matauranga Maori) having equal standing with ‘western’ science (The Spectator, March 2023).
Cartoon first published: November 2010, BBC Knowledge magazine
Cartoon reference number: a534









