These people will likely end up going to prison, despite the painting being undamaged which is clearly excessive. Even if you dislike the cause or the method they adopt.
Let us remember that these paintings are behind protective glass, meaning the actual item is not affected. This is a shock tactic protest and to also send a message regarding the recent excessive custodial sentence (2 years!) for the previous protestors.
Hope they get four years, personally.
I know they need a way to get attention. But you have to get the attention in a way that doesn’t make people angry with you. Stopping a sporting event or ruining a priceless painting is not the way.
Try throwing that soup on a politician or a billionaire. Everyone will love that.
Attention is all they care about, because they're narcissists.
They need to get more time in prison than the last ones.
You do realise that some quite serious acts get much less than 2 years in, right?
I wonder how the pitch meeting went for this at protestor headquarters:
Pitcher: We need the public engaged so that we can change policy to help mitigate climate change. So I suggest we vandalize beloved historical works of art. This will prove to the general public not only the value of our cause, but also enamor them to us. They will see that, by vandalizing art pieces, we are the most sensible and trustworthy to lead the way.
Protestor: I get it, so we vandalize art owned by the wealthy oil oligarchs hidden away in their giant mansions to highlight the disparities between them and those that actually have to suffer the consequences of climate change.
Pitcher: Nope. We go after the ones in open art galleries routinely viewed and appreciated by huge swaths of the general public. Also, we're going to use soup.
Seems weak, ineffective, theatrical and unnecessary.
I am an avid news junkie, but this one came to me just a few minutes ago via an obscure social media dedicated to anything that satisfies intellectual curiosity.
From this I conclude this performance from two days ago is not having the desired effect on the masses.
To what extent this can be considered a work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, I don't have a clear answer to that yet.
Although it was the second performance of the play, as far as it is known no Heinz' soups were harmed this time.
I will have to ask some LLM on this later after feeding it with the works of Walter Benjamin.
My nasty suspicion is that these fools are secretly paid by Big Oil.
Actions like this are so damaging to the cause as to be pro-oil. I'm inclined to agree with you.
Interesting. My second question after seeing this headline was whether the paintings in question are owned by the Getty Trust (no), which would at least make some symbolic sense.
And in spite of my support for both civil disobedience in general and climate change activism in particular, I have to admit, as a van Gogh fan, my first question was whether the paintings were damaged (also no).
My third question, as yet unanswered: why van Gogh paintings rather than a target directly related to the oil industry or climate change?
Subject: Just stop oil soups
Adverb?: two more
Verb: Van goghs
Object: hours after sentencing of earlier souping
How brave! Going after paintings when they could protest wars, inefficient shipping routes for natural gas etc.
Where would they get their soup from if all use of oil and fertilizer suddenly stopped? Why are they wasting food?
Is there a list of acceptable causes that we should all focus on first, before moving onto the next?
How about if you're focusing on climate change, you target the causes of climate change? Shocking, I know.
Government policy? Lobbying has been active since the late 70's and not made enough progress. What approach do you suggest?
Perhaps their actions are not working ... as you have demonstrated that you have absolutely no idea what they are campaigning for.
No disrespect, but I support what they are campaigning for and the need for attention - but it's not working. As you've so clearly shown.
They need to change their tactics.
It's worse than not working, it's breeding resentment against them and their cause. There are only a handful of replies here so far, and one of them is this
> I hate these people. Van Gogh is my favorite artist. I feel like going out and buying a Hummer.
I have to say, I believe in climate change and that we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and the life on it. But what this group is doing is frankly evil and should be opposed.
Calling them evil is much too far and cheapens the word to what it really means.
Logically, they've done no significant physical damage.
However, the damage is in the minds of the message recipients.
The fact that they aren't changing their tactics is evidence that they're working exactly as intended. It's only confusing if you think they care about anything other than attention.
Good for them.
Considering the injustice of the sentence given out (relative to what others have gotten for far worse crimes), I'm considering having a go myself.
Everyone get a soup tin ...
In other news, the incoming new government have had to release many small time prisoners because of the prison overcrowding crisis in the UK.
Vandalism of art treasures is a serious crime in that it degrades society. It's why we cannot have nice things.
Why would you want a society that has to lock up art, has to have expensive security, has to search people entering a museum, etc.?
You're never going to make me sympathetic towards the goal of such terrorism, quite the reverse.
I don't disagree with their right to protest in seemingly vandalistic ways (read your history).
I don't agree that priceless art is above the importance of our planet or the lives of people.
But I do disagree with their tactics. But only because they are not working. They are getting attention, but at the expense of the logical failure of the recipients of the message through their outrage.
> I don't agree that priceless art is above the importance of our planet or the lives of people.
This is just a false dichotomy. You don't, in general, have to choose between priceless art and the importance of our planet.
Their tactics don't work because they aren't choosing tactics based on effectiveness. Attention is all they care about, because they're narcissists.
Possibly. I wouldn't know. It's possible you don't either.
> Vandalism of art treasures is a serious crime in that it degrades society.
You'll never believe what our current levels of CO2 does to society.
And if all their demands were met today - or let's say the UK ceases to exist today and doesn't emit anything anymore - how would that impact climate change?
Last time I checked the methods of measuring temperature via satellites was not percise enough to even account for that scenario. It's like stealing ten people's drinking water so that you can put out a big forest fire. Knowing it will not at all impact the forest fire but it will sure as hell make the ten people angry. And then celebrating yourself for doing something. It's beyond stupid.
They're almost as bad as the ones in Germany who glued themselves to the streets and then couldn't show up to court because they flew to Bali. These people are seriously something.
In case anyone was curious like I was:
> Given a choice between a Stuttgart court date or a sandy, balmy beach in Bali, it’s clear how most people would decide.
> Now Luisa and Yannick, two young radical German climate activists, are learning to their cost that they may have made the wrong choice.
> Last September in Stuttgart the two participated in a climate protest by the group Last Generation, gluing their hands to a city street and blocking traffic beneath a banner reading: “Save oil don’t drill.”
[…]
> A Last Generation spokesperson told Bild: “They booked the flight as private persons, not as climate protectionists. That must be kept separate.”
* https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2023/02/03/german-cl...
That's a pretty ridiculous argument for a couple of reasons.
1. Vandalism of art does nothing to advance dealing with high CO2 levels. The problems with CO2 have been widely reported. It is a major issue in most major democracies that comes up for debate in most major elections. So it is not going to do anything measurable to raise awareness of the issue.
2. The same argument works for anything that does less harm than our current CO2 levels. If I protested CO2 levels by going around slapping babies, would that be an acceptable form of protest? Slapping a few babies, even hard enough to cause some brain damage, causes less harm than CO2 levels being too high.
Associating your cause with vandals, criminals, thugs, obnoxious people, etc., will not help your cause. It'll hurt it.
There's a reason why businesses do not market their products that way.
I take the climate seriously and do my part to minimise how much of my footprint contributes to fucking around with the chemistry of our atmosphere. It's clear that changes to CO2 levels will change our climate in ways that will have global sociopolitical and socioeconomic consequences.
There is no reliable evidence[0] that CO2 has an effect on human cognition or on "society." High indoor CO2 levels aren't bad because of the CO2, it's bad because it's a marker of poor ventilation. And poor ventilation has many consequences for the chemical makeup of that air.
[0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32557862/
I think it's perfectly reasonable to add a sentencing multiplier for crimes with the intent of notoriety, as a deterrent for copycat behaviour. JSO are a cult of narcissistic anarchists who use environmentalism as a mere aesthetic — as cover for their true goal, which is the "protests" themselves.
I hate these people. Van Gogh is my favorite artist. I feel like going out and buying a Hummer.
I replied in another thread a few days ago (that of course was downvoted into oblivion by our pious and virtuous HN audience) that these people make me want to turn down my AC 5 degrees and run my SUV in my driveway for an hour. Tongue in cheek of course, but not far from it.
Fuck these people.
> With respect, when you say that, you sound like a basic asshole
So they can deface priceless art, but I’m an asshole for a sarcastic illustration of why their tactic of choice might be counterproductive to the cause? I’m ok with that.
Thank you for explaining to me how I shouldn’t disagree with these people. I found that really ironic.
Deface? ... I'd call it a minor inconvenience in reality (come on, I effetively agree with a lot of what you say, but let's call a spade a spade at least)
As for the rest of it ... I don't know, it seems you're either not equipped for this, or you've forgotten what you've written. Either way, best to end this here.
Thank you again for explaining to me how I should act and think. Your sense of morality is something I should probably aspire to be one day.
Also, thanks for calling me a “prick”. It’s nice to see that despite your obvious pious nature you are still able to lower your communications to a level where a heathen like me can understand.
Have a nice day. Oh and I hear Campbells soup and Gorilla glue are BOGO this week at the store (Just in case you feel the need to do any “minor inconveniences in the future).