REAL CLIMATE
Unforced variations thread Nov 2022
Anyone read Greta Thunberg’s book? or have an opinion about soup?
Be substantive, be polite, be talking about climate
says
Unforced variations thread Nov 2022
Be substantive, be polite, be talking about climate
says
I do have an opinion about the soup:
I fully support their action.
It reminded me of one of the famous ethical dilemmas: a museum is on fire, inside there is a dog and a unique painting, you can save only one, which one would you choose?
I hope the protesters had that in mind too, as they tried one more time to point out our trivial preoccupations with and fetishization of our artifacts as opposed to life and the biosphere.
Given how many people were offended that they dared attack a unique painting (like any painting it can have zero value or absurd money-laundering level value, but as de gustibus et coloribus non disputandum, I will not select a value), I am afraid those people are choosing the wrong answer with deadly consequences.
I hope the debate started by the two courageous, biophilic and rational young women and their group will go further and question the huge investment in and ecological footprint of all art and other museums, while there are millions of unhoused people, the energy required to operate them could be used by people in need, the land occupied by the museums could have a myriad of truly valuable uses, the list of opportunity costs is long.
Plus our brain capacity could have much better uses, how to solve the climate emergency is a critical one, than obsessing about any piece of art that nobody would care about if it weren’t marketed by the one percenters, the bourgeoisie and the art “experts” who cannot not find a more useful line of work.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/22/just-stop-oil-van-gogh-national-gallery-aileen-getty