Just Stop Oil protesters have been arrested after smashing the glass covering a Diego Velázquez painting at the National Gallery in London, as police detained dozens of others who blocked Whitehall.
Two activists targeted the glass on the Rokeby Venus painting with safety hammers before they were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage.
The artwork, which was painted by Velázquez in the 1600s, was slashed by the suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914. One of those involved on Monday said: “Women did not get the vote by voting; it is time for deeds not words.”
The Metropolitan police said at least 40 activists who were “slow marching” in Whitehall were also detained and that the road was clear after traffic was stopped for a brief period.
It is very clearly about publicity. You can’t get any message across unless you get someone’s attention in the first place.
In this case, they are playing on the link back to the suffragettes.
Seems to me like they’re getting a net negative message across since they’re seen more as nuts. But I hope someone there has done the sociology analysis to see if it’s actually a net positive or negative impact on their cause.
There have been studies on this kind of thing. I don’t have the links to hand, but the upshot from the ones that I have seen IIRC is that it doesn’t generally cause many people to actually change their views from positive to negative or vice versa, but it does keep the issue in the news.
Of course, in the wider perspective, no protests of this kind are ever going to work alone, but then that’s not the idea. They are never going to be happening alone either: there are always going to legal challenges, political movements, consumer pressure, boycotts and so on and so on alongside. The question is, which ones drive which others? Which wouldn’t happen without the others?
I would do anything to stop the climate catastrophe at this point. Good for them.
But if what they’re doing has a net negative perception to the cause, they’re hurting our chances of minimizing global warming, not helping it.
Anyone who doesn’t see how bad climate change is at this point is a fool
For real. Willful ignorance is one thing on its own but when the consequence of it is this catastrophic I’m not sure what to even call it.
I recently had a conversation with a rural gentleman who said “we sure seem to be having some crazy weather lately” but calls climate change a liberal hoax. This conversation took place on the bank of a river that had just experienced something worse than a 1000 year flood. There had been 6 more houses within a stones throw of us less than a week ago. Now they were somewhere downstream along with the very ground on which their foundations had rested.
This man is living the consequences of climate change more than most and yet he still refuses to see the problem for what it is. I have no idea what to call that other than lunacy.
Which is not the point that poster is trying to make.
They’re basically asking “is this message effective or is it having a negative impact on the overall goal to the cause?” Whether people (jfc can’t believe I’m about to say this) don’t believe in climate change or not is a completely different conversation than the one being had here, which is talking about whether this group is doing good or not. I would say it’s overall helping because any attention is actually good attention if you’re smart enough to capitalize on it and present an argument or statement in an attempt to change people’s minds.
Can you try contributing instead of being a Redditor and saying general and slightly on-topic shit for some sick upvotes?
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Well, yeah - it’s a statement that any sane person would agree with. Good on you for standing by it.
Next time, actually say something on-topic to the conversation and contribute instead of seemingly mindlessly posting random stuff for internet points.
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We still need to convince the fools
But the world is full of a whole lot of fools, and we still need to convince at least some of them.
And that has what to do with destroying art? Fuck those people, they deserve no beauty in their lives, and neither do you if you stand with them.
We are in a net negative situation.
Wdym? An action like this will either help or hurt their cause in aggregate.