The Rise and Fall of the First World War Gullible Worker as a Counterculture

Abstract

This chapter explores the use of humour as a tool to expose the perceived ‘incorrect’ political thinking, or ‘false consciousness’, of the ‘common worker’ in English-speaking labour movement comic strips. Humour was used both to entertain and to educate. In order to achieve the latter, the comic strips repeated concepts discussed in trade union and socialist newspapers in an easily digestible form. This allows scholars today to triangulate and cross-reference editorial and comic strip newspaper content, as well as other sources (Collingwood: 1935), leading to a greater understanding of mentalité as a record of the Left in the First World War.