Calvin and Hobbes’ final strip ran more than a quarter of a century ago in 1995. Its decade-long run coincided with many political events that heralded the polarisation seen in America today — it began during the administration of conservative icon Ronald Reagan, survived the end of the Cold War, witnessed the fracturing of bipartisan politics with Ross Perot’s independent candidacy, and ended just after Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America signalled a tumultuous relationship between the two major parties. Yet, despite being syndicated in daily newspapers which charted every contour of these events, the strip never ventures into overtly political territory. Its unwillingness to engage in political debates probably contributes to the strip’s sense of universality, adding to its longstanding popularity.
This is definitely surprising, not just considering the upheaval of its era, but also considering creator Bill Watterson’s origins in Vietnam War-era political cartoons, and the strip’s strident enthusiasm in exploring other thorny topics like religion or death — not to mention that the strip’s titular characters take from figures with well-documented political philosophies which Watterson encountered during his days studying political science in college. Characterising Calvin and Hobbes as entirely apolitical, therefore, would seem like a hasty conclusion. Indeed, there are some moments where the strip seems to gesture at political themes, and other times when it reveals strong political undertones, intimately tied to the political atmosphere of its time.
My main aim in this piece is therefore to tease out the undergirding political worldview those moments suggest and sketch out the strip’s interior belief system. Given the strip’s commitment to describing the world through the perceptions of a child, one natural place to begin is how children respond to pain and suffering in the world. Themes pertaining to war and conflict are ever-present, even if the setting is inspired by peaceful Midwestern Ohio. Given the time frame the comic occupies, the most natural theatre for the exploration of that theme was within the Cold War.
The Cold War
For forty years, American politics was structured around the Cold War. Joseph McCarthy built a political career out of fraudulent claims of a Communist takeover of Washington in the 1950s. Many later Presidents on both sides of the aisle began their ascension from the same anti-Communist base. While Richard Nixon questioned the Marxist sympathies of Alger Hiss and Ronald Reagan exposed Communist tactics in the Screen Actors’ Guild in the late 1940s, John F. Kennedy gained fame as the only Democratic Senator who refused to censure McCarthy in a Senate vote. Anti-Communism was thus woven into the fabric of American political discourse. Arguably, the Republican Party’s coalition of religious conservatives, foreign policy hawks, and Rockefeller liberals was mainly a response to the atheist, aggressive, and Communist Soviet Union. By the time Calvin and Hobbes first reached newspapers in 1985, however, the Cold War had started to fray, with Reagan and Gorbachev attending the Reykjavik Summit in 1986 and signing the INF Treaty in 1987. This momentous shift in US politics, culminating in the USSR’s collapse in 1991, proved to fuel much of the realignment of both parties in the 1990s.
Against this backdrop, Calvin and Hobbes differs in its approach to the Cold War compared to the overall political mood. Much of the rhetoric around the Cold War, Republican or Democrat, was celebratory. There was a sense of triumphalism in many cartoons of the day, espousing the view that the collapse of the USSR vindicated the American foreign policy of containment, which had more or less persisted regardless of which party held the White House. If the mood was not celebratory, there was at least a feeling of relief, reflected in the view that the world has avoided a nuclear apocalypse.
In Calvin and Hobbes, though, the treatment of the Cold War carries an almost anachronistic sobriety in spite of the litany of signs that the Cold War was ending. If anything, there may be some relief that the phase of Manichean conflict in human history is over, but there is a sombre treatment of the pointless nature of the conflict that overpowers any feelings of triumph.
While other cartoons exude a celebratory mood, Calvin and Hobbes is cynical. The notion that the US truly fought on the side of “liberty and democracy” is called into question, and hence the conflict ending in favour of the Americans is not greeted with any warmth or joy. The dazed discovery Calvin arrives at in the last panel is almost a retrospective take on the Cold War, gradually recognising that senseless deaths in its name have amounted to nothing substantial.
The comic occasionally goes even further. The Cold War is sometimes seen as a construction of political artifice, reflecting the view that the USSR was an invented enemy. The commentary sometimes alludes to McCarthyism and the bygone era of anti-Communist politics.
Labels like “Communists” are reduced to mere meaningless epithets, while the political binary of Western capitalism and Soviet Communism is regarded as childish and simplistic. The comic does not go so far as to suggest a false equivalence between the lack of freedoms in both spheres, but something in the stern reproach of Calvin’s father suggests that this geopolitical template does not represent reality.
There is indeed certainly still a Vietnam War-era political cartoonist behind much of Watterson’s ostensibly apolitical work. In dealing with a national psyche that had been shaped by decades of longstanding conflict, the strip directs some of that fatigue towards the narratives of anti-Communist crusaders. The above strips, however, help pave the way to another side of the strip’s political worldview. It challenges another predominant narrative in American politics — the cohesiveness and centrality of the nuclear family unit.
The Family Unit
The nuclear family is important to American politics. Even today, the nuclear family is still the operational unit of policy; Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, and Mitt Romney each use the term “working family” much more than they would “working adult” or “working individual”.
Much of the criticism levelled at Calvin and Hobbes in its own day focused on Calvin’s parents. They were inattentive to their son’s needs, sardonic in their treatment, and often depicted as unloving and thoughtless. This portrayal in many ways intersects with rising concern in American political media about the collapse of the nuclear family, a transition one notices between innocent 80s-era shows like The Cosby Show and Different Strokes with 90s-era animated shows like The Simpsons and South Park which lampooned the family unit as farcical and barely in control of their children. This shift in the popular culture did not elude political discourse — George H.W. Bush commented in 1992 that the average American family should be “more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons”. This shift also sometimes serves as a point of reference for the comic’s commentary on family. When Calvin talks about “a TV show I want to see”, he is clearly not referring to a sitcom family, but likely some show with much less sentimentality that had already exceeded the sitcom family in popularity.
The practice of eating dinner together is presented as unpleasant. Calvin sees himself as having little in common with his parents, breaking with conservative narratives of strong familial connections. The strip hence adds something unique to the depiction of the American family that is markedly different from either The Simpsons or South Park. South Park questioned the parenting methods of its characters, especially Liane Cartman, who always gave in to her spoilt, narcissistic Eric. Calvin and Hobbes is certainly different from South Park in that its parents are too authoritarian and dismissive, rather than too lax and tolerant. Though tame for today’s age, The Simpsons shattered the image of a wholesome family, with the alcoholic and buffoonish Homer Simpson and the sensible but overburdened and sometimes overbearing Marge. In Calvin and Hobbes, Calvin’s parents have no such obvious personality flaws. Instead, their chief defect is the mundaneness of their lives, leaving them blinkered to the creativity of their child and resulting in Calvin’s lack of interest in their lives.
The strip implies that the lack of connection between father and son is at least in part the product of his humdrum work life. Extrapolated into the real world, the strip does not see parents to be innately at fault for the decline of the family, but rather, centres blame on the unrealistic expectation of balancing the demands of the workplace with those of the home. Watterson’s own comment on Calvin’s parents is that “they do a better job than I would”, a statement which contrasts sharply to Trey Parker’s statement on Liane Cartman: “[We’ve met] so many parents who were just so desperately trying to be friends to their kids. And it was the thing we really picked up on. And it was just like, ‘These [people] are making these really evil kids.’”
In fact, like The Simpsons, Calvin and Hobbes sometimes evokes a sense of familial love and bonding. However, this is only accomplished when a strong distinction between work and home is set out.
The family is not a totally irredeemable construction in the strip’s worldview. It certainly resists the syrupy portrayal that popular culture and political rhetoric indulged in through the 1980s, but attributes flaws in the nuclear family to financial needs rather than the innate structure of the family. Watterson already saw market capitalism as invasive, but it would be interesting to imagine Calvin and Hobbes written in today’s world, where work-from-home arrangements have blurred the divide between family and work even further. It might well be the case that in the present paradigm dominated instead by cynical takes on family life, a Calvin and Hobbes published today would caution against abandoning family despite the occasional discomfort it poses.
The Natural Environment
If there is one area that Calvin and Hobbes clearly advocates a policy position, it is in the realm of environmental protection. In the context of one particular strip in which Calvin visits Mars only to reflect that humans would leave it polluted, Watterson stated that in retrospect, his political message had been too high-handed.
In the present political climate where much of the Republican base deny climate change and endorse rolling back EPA regulations, it might be tempting to suggest that Calvin and Hobbes shares the worldview of modern-day Democrats who seek action on climate change. This, however, is not the case.
Most proponents of climate change action today are interested in the irreversible, large-scale implications of environmental issues. Scientific data highlighting this possibility is not new — at the time of the strip’s syndication, the high-profile Montreal and Kyoto Protocols had already drawn attention to the global harms of climate change and rising emissions. Against this backdrop, Calvin and Hobbes has a more parochial focus. The antagonists of the environment are rarely large-scale polluters like the agricultural or automobile industries, but much smaller-scale acts of environmental destruction, such as condominium redevelopment. Moreover, the strip emphasises conserving the natural world for its own sake, rather than potential harms to human interests.
The environmentalism in the strip is focused on the tarnishing of a previously unspoiled and untamed wilderness. This bears a much greater resemblance to Theodore Roosevelt’s approach to environmental protection than to modern, anthropocentric concerns. Where it differs from Roosevelt’s worldview is that it discusses environmental protection in the context of ongoing disruption, while much of Roosevelt’s thinking was shaped by his anxieties about the possibility of natural resources being diminished in a distant future. Calvin and Hobbes hence has much in common with the environmentalism of Rachel Carson, whose environmentalism was grounded in a Presbyterian ethic which condemned mankind’s arrogance in its attitude to the natural world. The two share a fascination of the complexities of ecologies and ecosystems, and the view that its loss is a tragic phenomenon. Calvin standing on a fallen tree lends a visual aid to the story of cyclical birth and decay in the natural order.
Even when climate change is explicitly mentioned, its implications are framed around a sense of loss and a diminished natural inheritance. The anthropocentric undercurrent of most modern discourse is not present.
On the issue of environmental conservation, Calvin and Hobbes defies a simple characterisation on the political spectrum. Certainly, its worldview would embrace many environmental protections supported by the liberal-left. Yet, the reasons it would do so are completely different. Many concerned about climate change now are motivated by the language of equity and crisis. The strip perhaps more closely resembles Richard Nixon’s justification for setting up the EPA in 1970, which involved “clean water, open spaces, [which are] the birthright of every American”.
The Technological Era
Calvin and Hobbes occupies a strange space between two incompatible worldviews on technological issues. On one hand, the strip seems to embrace a futurism defined by greater convenience and seamlessness. In contrast to this new world, the past is seen as stifling, uninspiring, and disempowering. While Calvin and Hobbes bucked the trend of celebratory comics in the Cold War theme, it does not avoid the hankering for new technologies that readers felt as they excitedly awaited the new millennium. There is even a tinge of dotcom neoliberalism, with new technologies presented as fully complementary with and beneficial towards the capitalist economy.
This imaginative optimism about the future, however, contrasts to a more technophobic angle around the gadgets of the strip’s own time. The TV in particular is mocked as a symbol of enslavement towards popular culture and media trends.
Strips with this technophobic angle towards the TV are interesting for a few reasons. First, they ironically still have a sting of relevance given the rise of the smartphone, though the phenomenon of TV addiction itself has largely evanesced. More importantly, the slavish attitude Calvin appears contradictory. Not only does it contradict the yearning for futurism, but this depiction also punctures the image of Calvin as an uncontained, imaginative child. It seems unsuitable that Calvin, capable of conjuring alter egos like Spaceman Spiff and Tracey Bullet, would be used as the conduit for expressing discontent at the dumbed down entertainment technology enables.
One possible resolution to this contradiction is that the strip is actually welcoming of the technology themselves, but resists the entertainment and content that it provides. Choosing Calvin as the conduit for this message actually only enhances its poignancy — to see a child with an uninhibited imagination subjected to poor quality media, and the strip’s protagonist no less, increases the emotional stakes in a way that making his father, his mother, or even Hobbes the TV-addicted character fails to accomplish.
The technological worldview that the strip offers hence distinguishes between the technology being created and the ways it is applied. Technological improvements are lauded as almost universally positive, but must be complemented by simultaneous improvements or at the very least adjustments in human education and faculties. In the case of the TV, the strip posits that faster-pace information channels would only be beneficial if humans were able to avoid the foibles of sensationalism and resist the temptation of a reduced attention span.
The following panels illustrate the general principle behind the strip’s worldview, showing on one hand the futuristic vision of technology superseding human needs, but on the other expressing the embittered view that without intervention, human foibles will persist regardless of technological improvement. The absurd punchline is a strong reminder of the irrationality that Hobbes mentions as he revels in being a voice of reason.
Noticeably, the responsibility for human self-improvement is placed squarely on the individual, rather than on wider institutions. The strip sometimes gestures at constraints on the ability to improve oneself, such as the capitalistic rat-race, but those constraints are generally papered over. The strip clearly signals the need for readers to take personal ownership for the formation of their own habits.
Technological progress and futuristic visions of the world were pronounced in political discourse in the 1990s, more so than today. Though the pace of technological development has only since increased, optimism about technology has only since plummeted with mounting concerns from Facebook’s political controversies to mental health concerns to national security fears with Huawei’s 5G research. Though it certainly joins in the party, Calvin and Hobbes is more muted in its celebration, cautioning people about how they must themselves make proactive changes. To hear such a message from a politician, wagging their finger at their constituents, is next to impossible. That is why a cartoon, secure in the part of the newspaper where readers are most off-guard, has the unique opportunity to share its worldview and gently mock its own readership.
The Media Industry
The strip’s view of political media is not a positive one. Print media is depicted as deliberately designed to engineer political apathy through the sensationalistic pursuit of the savoury and the salacious in the stead of hot-button issues. The irony of these criticisms being levelled in a newspaper would not have been lost to most readers.
Calvin’s description of politics as farce bears many similarities to Noam Chomsky’s view in Manufacturing Consent, published in 1988, albeit with key difference. There is essentially no disagreement between Calvin and Chomsky on the view that the media uses manipulative tactics to retain viewer interest, though Chomsky would go further to argue that the media reside in the throes of ideological institutions. However, while Chomsky characterises those powerful institutions as hostile to reform, Calvin and Hobbes places the onus on its readers to educate themselves and demand higher editorial standards. As with many other issues in the Calvin and Hobbes worldview, such as the commentary on TV addiction we explored earlier, self-education is a key plank in the solution to media manipulation.
The Chomskyan notion of media-invented enemies is reflected in the strip’s attitude towards fund-raising, for which print media is depicted as the conduit. There is an echo of the strip’s cynicism towards the Cold War, and a nod to the ‘yellow journalism’ that began during the Spanish-American War. Again, though, the strip pithily recognises that such methods are a fact of marketing. Positioned as it is, buyers are the ones expected to resist media-enabled schemes.
The strip below similarly argues that the tendency to exaggerate and embellish to generate interest is a natural and understandable one. In the context of its other commentaries on the media, the implication is that readers have to be vigilant in determining truth from falsehood and opinion from fact, rather than expecting that those distinctions will be made on one’s behalf.
It would be remiss to conclude a discussion on political media without talking about opinion polling. Here, the notion of media manipulation is at its clearest, and Calvin and Hobbes is at its most cynical. This cynicism, however, is not usually directed at the media, but rather at ordinary voters who make unrealistic demands of their elected officials and fail to have any share of the responsibility. The media are regarded as having helped to propagate this unhealthy relationship by making politicians responsive to the pulse of public opinion, but the voters themselves are seen as mercurial, indecisive, and misguided.
In Jill Lepore’s single-volume history of America, much space is dedicated to opinion polling and the way it invented the modern American politician. Beginning from Upton Sinclair’s ill-fated 1934 candidacy for the California Governorship and the defeat of Harry Truman’s national healthcare plan, opinion polls have been used not just to determine a politician’s course of action, but also which politicians were chosen on the slate to begin with. Lepore argued that John F. Kennedy’s nomination by the Democratic Party in 1960 was driven by opinion polls which gestured towards a young, media-savvy candidate.
Calvin and Hobbes criticises these opinion polls in a similar fashion, characterising them as oppositional to American democracy. While there is an anti-establishmentarian streak to this critique, there is an equally potent argument being made that ordinary voters themselves had to make more rigorous demands of themselves in terms of taking responsible action and acquainting themselves with policy constraints.
Epilogue: Calvin and Hobbes, Democrat or Republican?
This brief sketch of Calvin and Hobbes reveals a few key characteristics which unite the views it takes on various political issues on its day. These three characteristics — scepticism about institutions and politics, a strong sense of personal responsibility and ownership, and a sensitivity towards tragic loss — collectively constitute its unique political worldview.
The strip’s scepticism towards institutions and politics is evident in its depiction of the media and of the Cold War in particular. There is marked disdain towards the invention of political labels and enemies, harking back to McCarthyism, as well as a cynicism towards American ideals and whether they truly motivated American foreign policy. The strip’s most clearly politicised element, its description of opinion polling, highlights that politicians are more concerned with temporary popularity rather than national well-being. In the light of documentary filmmaker Ken Burns’ remark that present-day America still lives in the Vietnam War’s shadow, Calvin and Hobbes does share some of the disillusionment with the political class fostered in its wake.
This view of authority, however, is accompanied with the strip’s advocacy for personal responsibility and ownership. To engage in a gross oversimplification, if Calvin and Hobbes’ sceptical view makes it a Democrat comic, then its extolling of personal self-improvement aligns it closer with Republican values. On issues like technological addiction, the low quality of media, and even the political pursuit of popularity, the strip places blame on its readers for their lack of discernment, their unrealistic expectations of others, and their low standards for themselves. In addressing political concern about the disintegration of the nuclear family, the strip eschews any sentimentality about an ideal separation between life and work, but places the responsibility on figures like Calvin’s father to make the decisions in furtherance of their family life. Watterson is no fan of capitalistic commercialisation and has always been wary of being a corporate sell-out, as his books and his refusal to licence the strip for merchandising make exceptionally clear. Nonetheless, opting out of capitalistic forces is seen as a personal, not a systemic, decision, closely paralleling Watterson’s own fight with syndicates about his artistic and moral choices. Indeed, in the strip’s depiction of the education system, criticism of some of its antiquated practices is accompanied by the message that one can always choose to take charge of and invest in one’s own education if so desired.
This combination of scepticism and responsibility is accompanied by a tragic tone which makes occasional appearances, but is usually well-concealed behind the punchline of the joke. One might expect a cynical comic to indulge in a darker brand of humour and display emotional detachment from its subjects, but the cynicism of Calvin and Hobbes is always qualified with a wistful sigh. Almost all the strips about environmentalism mourn the intangible loss to human spirituality, while the onslaught of technological addiction is never quantified in the number of hours wasted, but the repression of creativity and the divergence from the strip’s usually zaniness. Tragedy serves as the story structure for the Sunday strip’s retelling of the Cold War, where the sparseness of the penultimate panel signals a pained but reflective mood. Rather than outrage and indignance, which are the most common emotions used in today’s polarised political discourse, Calvin and Hobbes pursues a worldview supported by a more complex set of deeper emotions.
One always faces the temptation of classifying the entirety of the strip as either being left-leaning or right-leaning, but this is not the case with Calvin and Hobbes. Indeed, one could fill out every section of the political compass with individual comics, simply because the worldview of the strip leads it to take many independent positions on a host of issues. Retroactively considering a piece of fiction is always risky, because events today invariably shape what we see of the past. After all, the comfortable, idyllic middle-class American lifestyle centred around the time-honoured values of self-reliance and responsibility is almost a civilisation gone with the wind. Calvin and Hobbes both endures as a living artefact which continues to prompt contemplation on modern concerns, and as an historical one, using its medium to sugar-coat some hard and painful truths for its own time.
