Oct 7, 2024 05:31 PM
Why climate activists keep targeting art galleries – despite public outcry
https://theconversation.com/why-climate-...cry-240195
EXCERPTS: . . . Throwing soup at paintings is extremely unpopular. We recently commissioned a YouGov poll in which 2,048 representative members of the public were asked about 15 different forms of climate protest. Throwing food at paintings was considered the least justifiable of these protests – less justifiable than sabotaging pipelines, damaging private jets or breaking windows at companies financing oil exploration.
The extreme unpopularity of throwing soup at Sunflowers virtually guaranteed that it would have an audience of millions. Although commentators worried that such an unpopular action would turn people away from the cause, there is no evidence for such an impact. The public may hate the messengers and their actions, but they’re nevertheless exposed to the message.
Indeed, we suspect the reason activists target art is directly related to why it is so unpopular. In academic psychology, terror management theory suggests that damaging revered cultural symbols threatens the psychological defences we rely on to mitigate existential fears.
Think of how memorials are built to soldiers who die in war, to offer them a form of symbolic immortality (“they shall not grow old”), and the way any threat to desecrate such memorials is met with strong condemnation.
[...] These protests trigger a powerful desire for punishment and condemnation. But society would benefit from a sincere attempt to understand the rationale and motivations of those activists who seem to go beyond the normal bounds of protest. Deterrence will not work for those who are acting by their own moral imperatives. It will not stop those climate activists who are drawn to radical symbolic action in order to interrupt the “business as usual” that is leading toward the destruction of both art and life... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cynic's Corner: Similar to a noisy child receiving a candy bar as a bribe for becoming quiet over a temporary period, rewarding this behavior with "understanding" isn't going to completely stop it, either. And joining "moral warrior" groups and their particular variety of attention-whore undertakings is sometimes a crusader facade for satisfying disturbing, personal psychological motivations ranging from selfish to products of mental illness (rather than pristine ethical nobility)
https://theconversation.com/why-climate-...cry-240195
EXCERPTS: . . . Throwing soup at paintings is extremely unpopular. We recently commissioned a YouGov poll in which 2,048 representative members of the public were asked about 15 different forms of climate protest. Throwing food at paintings was considered the least justifiable of these protests – less justifiable than sabotaging pipelines, damaging private jets or breaking windows at companies financing oil exploration.
The extreme unpopularity of throwing soup at Sunflowers virtually guaranteed that it would have an audience of millions. Although commentators worried that such an unpopular action would turn people away from the cause, there is no evidence for such an impact. The public may hate the messengers and their actions, but they’re nevertheless exposed to the message.
Indeed, we suspect the reason activists target art is directly related to why it is so unpopular. In academic psychology, terror management theory suggests that damaging revered cultural symbols threatens the psychological defences we rely on to mitigate existential fears.
Think of how memorials are built to soldiers who die in war, to offer them a form of symbolic immortality (“they shall not grow old”), and the way any threat to desecrate such memorials is met with strong condemnation.
[...] These protests trigger a powerful desire for punishment and condemnation. But society would benefit from a sincere attempt to understand the rationale and motivations of those activists who seem to go beyond the normal bounds of protest. Deterrence will not work for those who are acting by their own moral imperatives. It will not stop those climate activists who are drawn to radical symbolic action in order to interrupt the “business as usual” that is leading toward the destruction of both art and life... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cynic's Corner: Similar to a noisy child receiving a candy bar as a bribe for becoming quiet over a temporary period, rewarding this behavior with "understanding" isn't going to completely stop it, either. And joining "moral warrior" groups and their particular variety of attention-whore undertakings is sometimes a crusader facade for satisfying disturbing, personal psychological motivations ranging from selfish to products of mental illness (rather than pristine ethical nobility)