I feel like I should mention that I spoke to Nate about these before he released this design because of my concern to steer clear of potential issues with our "no politics" policy. Che Guevera is certainly a very polarizing figure, but it seems to me that in today's world he's mutated into a very general symbol of "a revolutionary" without much general association with exactly who he was or who he was fighting or much of anything about his politics. Instead, this particular image with that iconic hat is widely recognized as a general symbol of revolutionary spirit without - in my view - much of any real detail about how the association arose.
I told Nate also that in my view the beneficial allusion to draw was the general "revolutionary" or "anti-establishment spirit of Epicurus, and other analogies - though harder to illustrate - might even be people like Robin Hood or "Zorro." I could imagine it would be good to have a series of these in this style analogizing Epicurus as a revolutionary, but those don't have the easier-to-duplicate imagery of the Che Guevera hat, so I'm not sure we'll ever see others.
The icing of the cake on the Che Guevera imagery that in my mind removes any remaining "no-politics" problem is the pig on the hat. That's an excellent touch and really seals the deal that this imagery is in good fun - while still making an important point about the revolutionary aspects of Epicurus' philosophy - in my opinion.
So while we always want to be careful to steer clear of divisive political imagery, in this case I don't think we have a problem.
Comments 1
Cassius
In regard to Nate's "Chepicurus" Icons and images: RE: Profile Picture Icons
I feel like I should mention that I spoke to Nate about these before he released this design because of my concern to steer clear of potential issues with our "no politics" policy. Che Guevera is certainly a very polarizing figure, but it seems to me that in today's world he's mutated into a very general symbol of "a revolutionary" without much general association with exactly who he was or who he was fighting or much of anything about his politics. Instead, this particular image with that iconic hat is widely recognized as a general symbol of revolutionary spirit without - in my view - much of any real detail about how the association arose.
I told Nate also that in my view the beneficial allusion to draw was the general "revolutionary" or "anti-establishment spirit of Epicurus, and other analogies - though harder to illustrate - might even be people like Robin Hood or "Zorro." I could imagine it would be good to have a series of these in this style analogizing Epicurus as a revolutionary, but those don't have the easier-to-duplicate imagery of the Che Guevera hat, so I'm not sure we'll ever see others.
The icing of the cake on the Che Guevera imagery that in my mind removes any remaining "no-politics" problem is the pig on the hat. That's an excellent touch and really seals the deal that this imagery is in good fun - while still making an important point about the revolutionary aspects of Epicurus' philosophy - in my opinion.
So while we always want to be careful to steer clear of divisive political imagery, in this case I don't think we have a problem.
Thank you Nate for those designs!