10 ms·

Just Stop Oil protesters sentenced 2years for throwing soup on Van Gogh painting

24 points by lando2319 2y ago

hindsightbias 2y ago
I wonder what Van Gogh would think. Perhaps painting gas plumes instead of water lilies.
- thefifthsetpin 2y ago
  Van Gogh used art to transform his misery, illness, and madness into scenes peace and beauty. If he were to paint gas plumes, then looking at those plumes would fill you with feelings of serenity.
ruined 2y ago
>found guilty of causing criminal damage exceeding £5,000 [...] although the painting was protected by glass and was unharmed incredible
- pvaldes 2y ago
  why incredible? Somebody disrupting the normal activity from a museum is not different than somebody going to Google and unplugging a server. Even if the server is not damaged, the owner can be losing millions each hour that the server is out of service. After each attack, the museum must close for a while and check if everything is correct in the other rooms also. The picture must be removed, cleaned by paid specialists, somebody must verify that its integrity has not being compromised and that nothing is slowly leaking under the glass. Insurance staff must come and write a report. Policemen must lose hours of work and write reports also. There is a clear, measurable, and verifiable lose on ticket revenue for the museum. And the museum is not even responsible for the fact that people use cars!. I don't know how much the Louvre earns each day, but those £5,000 for weeks or months of not having the Monalissa available for display seems a value too low to me.
  - abeppu 2y ago
    > After each attack, the museum must close for a while This was the National Gallery in London, which I believe doesn't charge for admission because it's a public institution. But ... did the National Gallery actually close after these incidents, when just one painting was attacked and not actually damaged? That would seem to be an overreaction. In any case, I think a lost revenue justification for the damages along these lines seems kinda silly. Rather the judge seems to have believed that the damage is to society overall: > our culpability is at level A. You did reconnaissance and planning and talked to a journalist. Your harm is at category 1, which means extreme harm to society. > There is nothing peaceful or nonviolent about throwing soup. Throwing soup in someone’s face is violent. I think the problem with a legal system that treats throwing soup as violence and not damaging a painting as causing damage is that this flattening perspective only incentivizes activists to go big or go home. If you're going to be sentenced as if you did damage even when you did not ... then you may as well try to destroy the painting next time. If you're going to be treated by the legal system as if you committed a violent crime when you threw soup at an enclosed painting ... then maybe next time you should actually commit real violence. Note, it sounds like being convicted of battery in the UK only gets you up to a maximum of 6 months. So you could physically accost people and get a much shorter sentence than these soup-throwers. https://criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/punishment-sentences-assault-gbh/ https://criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/punishment-sente...
    - ruined 2y ago
      i can say that observationally, this just-do-the-crime reasoning is real. over the past couple decades, many american activists have realized that demonstrating certain political positions is dangerous, even if the demonstration itself and each individual participant is lawful. so now there's a broad activist culture that encourages independent militant action against productive capital, general infrastructure, administrative facilities, retail outlets, and personal homes!
      - abeppu 2y ago
        Though, I guess to ground this a little: I can say that observationally, this just-do-the-emissions reasoning is real. Over the past several decades, many industrialized individuals and groups have realized that pushing certain harmful chemicals into the environment is lawful almost regardless of the amount. So now there's a broad emitter culture that encourages independent destructive action against productive ecosystems and planetary systems, threatening the long term viability of public infrastructure, administrative facilities, retail outlets, and personal homes! The scale of destruction from climate activists is many orders of magnitude less than the destruction of what they're railing against. These soup-throwers are being charged, but Exxon/BP/Chevron are never charged with manslaughter or even reckless endangerment when a heatwave or hurricane which would not have happened but for climate change claims its many victims.
- baggy_trough 2y ago
  The painting was thankfully unharmed but there was significant damage to the frame.
- loco5niner 2y ago
  That actually sounds pretty low for the amount of labor and trouble they caused.
legitster 2y ago
This organization clearly wants to have it both ways. They are hiding behind the guise of advocating for "democracy" and claiming to be repressed by the state, but they are actually advocating for a very, very unpopular and undemocratic position and resorting to undemocratic methods to achieve it. Championing people like Ghandi or Mandela is a false equivalency as they actually fought to increase suffrage and representation. Just Stop Oil is advocating for non-democratic means to their specific policy positions. Maybe they are right in the long run, but they are not being intellectually honest about their justification.
- gqcwwjtg 2y ago
  What undemocratic policy? Or do you just mean unpopular?
  - legitster 2y ago
    Such as they even have a policy position, Just Stop Oil is advocating that governments ban all oil and gas contracts without a referendum or popular vote or even any elected officials. Ostensibly the organization is about political mobilization. But they haven't actually endorsed a candidate or secured a referendum or achieved anything vaguely democratic. Which I am not saying they have to do. But claiming they are on democracy's side seems a bit premature.
    - ruined 2y ago
      they're clearly organized and acting to influence public opinion and provide policy suggestions to elected representatives. public advocacy and communication to elected representatives are part of the democratic process. they have already achieved their first policy goal: the UK no longer issues new oil and gas drilling permits. https://juststopoil.org/2024/07/10/paint-the-town-orange-just-stop-oil-wins-first-demand/ https://juststopoil.org/2024/07/10/paint-the-town-orange-jus... they have set another policy goal, and i expect they won't change a winning formula.
      - 2y ago
Findecanor 2y ago
I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention, with the hope that some of the people who hear about the action will also take a little time to learn about the issue. There are climate-change protests every day worldwide that get no attention from media at all.
- richbell 2y ago
  YouTuber Tom Nicholas made a sort of "behind the scenes" video that explores their methods and motivations. https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU
- slothtrop 2y ago
  Climate-change has been salient for decades. Everyone who exposes themselves to the news-cycle is aware of it, and the attention people give to these protests is through said news. It's redundant. People have mostly made up their minds, but through message discipline it's possible to convey interesting data and that could potentially lead to follow-ups, which at best inform voting preferences or consumer choices. These stunts make the papers mostly because they're rage-bait, and consumers get their 2 min of hate. To biased readers, protests like these or those that target average people reflect negatively, which backfires on the entire ostensible "point" of these stunts (as opposed to the actual purpose) because it can be dismissed out of spite. The broken record you hear is "protests are supposed to be inconvenient". That is not true. They're supposed to win hearts and minds, engender sympathy, as that is what builds traction. It's possible to use inconvenience for that, but it's on a gradient. Civil rights protests were effective, but no one seriously believes it's because they managed to annoy and inconvenience average people really well.
- legitster 2y ago
  I don't know if it's the good kind of attention. It's pretty arguable that PETA adopting similar tactics has arguably slowed their cause more than helped. In PETA's case, they suck all of the air out of the room from other animal welfare organizations. These public displays do not change minds so much as they drive donations. So they end up control a bigger share of a shrinking pot. At least in PETA's case they can show examples of animal cruelty and make people aware about an issue. But I don't think there's a single person out there in the world who needs museums vandalized to learn about climate change. Meanwhile, there are lots of examples of tactful organizations that do not get headline attention but get decent policy results.
_fat_santa 2y ago
Good. My problem with Just Stop Oil is all their activism is just targeting people that have nothing to do with oil. They could be much more productive if they petitioned governments or people in power to change energy policy but no all they do is make the lives of people that have nothing to do with it miserable. Their logic goes something like: "if I splash paint on this painting or block traffic, people will see our message and that will motivate them to join our cause". But in reality those people aren't going to be motivated to join your cause, they will just think you are a giant asshat.
- orwin 2y ago
  To be fair, they never go for unprotected paintings, they mostly go for maximum outrage and visibility. I've talked to a Femen a few years ago (a Russian, exiled in France), asked why they go for visible but ultimately non-actionable acts, and basically her response was something like 'We want to shock the most bigoted, idiotic persons you know, so that they will talk about us to people without strong opinions at their family diners. You can't have real change even with strong words like "women are raped in their own bed" (it was waaaaay before Peniquot) if nobody is opposing you. We create an opposition to make our voice louder'. Or something like that, I mostly remember the last sentence.
- mmooss 2y ago
  We all have to do with oil. We all use it, and more than that, government is responsive to us. The main cause of climate change is people not doing anything about it. Building awareness and stimulating action is fundamental to any change. People respond to activism like it's some new, obviously stupid idea, rather than a technique with a long history of being effective and essential to democracy and freedom. That is, people respond to left-wing activism that way, for obvious reasons.
  - lotsoweiners 2y ago
    > The main cause of climate change is people not doing anything about it. Ok so other than voting for candidates/laws that assist with it and maybe driving an EV what can an individual do? How does ruined art factor into that? > Building awareness and stimulating action is fundamental to any change. If everyone has already heard about it everyday from the media and various internet people, how does a ruined art piece stimulate additional change?
yongjik 2y ago
If I want the public to tune out of climate issues in disgust, I can't think of a more effective way than throwing soup on Van Gogh while crying "Climate!" The cynic in me wonders if somebody is funding these protestors. If I were an oil baron I would feel deeply indebted to them.
Simulacra 2y ago
Good. Two years is a proper sentence, even if they are only likely to serve half of it per the article. These kinds of moral outrage stunts do very little to further their cause, make A lot of people angry, and have the real chance of damaging property and harming people. The latter by which I'm thinking of blocking traffic, which includes emergency vehicles.

24 points by lando2319 2y ago

hindsightbias 2y ago

I wonder what Van Gogh would think. Perhaps painting gas plumes instead of water lilies.

thefifthsetpin 2y ago
Van Gogh used art to transform his misery, illness, and madness into scenes peace and beauty. If he were to paint gas plumes, then looking at those plumes would fill you with feelings of serenity.

ruined 2y ago

>found guilty of causing criminal damage exceeding £5,000 [...] although the painting was protected by glass and was unharmed incredible

pvaldes 2y ago
why incredible? Somebody disrupting the normal activity from a museum is not different than somebody going to Google and unplugging a server. Even if the server is not damaged, the owner can be losing millions each hour that the server is out of service. After each attack, the museum must close for a while and check if everything is correct in the other rooms also. The picture must be removed, cleaned by paid specialists, somebody must verify that its integrity has not being compromised and that nothing is slowly leaking under the glass. Insurance staff must come and write a report. Policemen must lose hours of work and write reports also. There is a clear, measurable, and verifiable lose on ticket revenue for the museum. And the museum is not even responsible for the fact that people use cars!. I don't know how much the Louvre earns each day, but those £5,000 for weeks or months of not having the Monalissa available for display seems a value too low to me.
- abeppu 2y ago
  > After each attack, the museum must close for a while This was the National Gallery in London, which I believe doesn't charge for admission because it's a public institution. But ... did the National Gallery actually close after these incidents, when just one painting was attacked and not actually damaged? That would seem to be an overreaction. In any case, I think a lost revenue justification for the damages along these lines seems kinda silly. Rather the judge seems to have believed that the damage is to society overall: > our culpability is at level A. You did reconnaissance and planning and talked to a journalist. Your harm is at category 1, which means extreme harm to society. > There is nothing peaceful or nonviolent about throwing soup. Throwing soup in someone’s face is violent. I think the problem with a legal system that treats throwing soup as violence and not damaging a painting as causing damage is that this flattening perspective only incentivizes activists to go big or go home. If you're going to be sentenced as if you did damage even when you did not ... then you may as well try to destroy the painting next time. If you're going to be treated by the legal system as if you committed a violent crime when you threw soup at an enclosed painting ... then maybe next time you should actually commit real violence. Note, it sounds like being convicted of battery in the UK only gets you up to a maximum of 6 months. So you could physically accost people and get a much shorter sentence than these soup-throwers. https://criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/punishment-sentences-assault-gbh/ https://criminalinjurieshelpline.co.uk/blog/punishment-sente...
  - ruined 2y ago
    i can say that observationally, this just-do-the-crime reasoning is real. over the past couple decades, many american activists have realized that demonstrating certain political positions is dangerous, even if the demonstration itself and each individual participant is lawful. so now there's a broad activist culture that encourages independent militant action against productive capital, general infrastructure, administrative facilities, retail outlets, and personal homes!
    - abeppu 2y ago
      Though, I guess to ground this a little: I can say that observationally, this just-do-the-emissions reasoning is real. Over the past several decades, many industrialized individuals and groups have realized that pushing certain harmful chemicals into the environment is lawful almost regardless of the amount. So now there's a broad emitter culture that encourages independent destructive action against productive ecosystems and planetary systems, threatening the long term viability of public infrastructure, administrative facilities, retail outlets, and personal homes! The scale of destruction from climate activists is many orders of magnitude less than the destruction of what they're railing against. These soup-throwers are being charged, but Exxon/BP/Chevron are never charged with manslaughter or even reckless endangerment when a heatwave or hurricane which would not have happened but for climate change claims its many victims.
baggy_trough 2y ago
The painting was thankfully unharmed but there was significant damage to the frame.
loco5niner 2y ago
That actually sounds pretty low for the amount of labor and trouble they caused.

legitster 2y ago

This organization clearly wants to have it both ways. They are hiding behind the guise of advocating for "democracy" and claiming to be repressed by the state, but they are actually advocating for a very, very unpopular and undemocratic position and resorting to undemocratic methods to achieve it. Championing people like Ghandi or Mandela is a false equivalency as they actually fought to increase suffrage and representation. Just Stop Oil is advocating for non-democratic means to their specific policy positions. Maybe they are right in the long run, but they are not being intellectually honest about their justification.

gqcwwjtg 2y ago
What undemocratic policy? Or do you just mean unpopular?
- legitster 2y ago
  Such as they even have a policy position, Just Stop Oil is advocating that governments ban all oil and gas contracts without a referendum or popular vote or even any elected officials. Ostensibly the organization is about political mobilization. But they haven't actually endorsed a candidate or secured a referendum or achieved anything vaguely democratic. Which I am not saying they have to do. But claiming they are on democracy's side seems a bit premature.
  - ruined 2y ago
    they're clearly organized and acting to influence public opinion and provide policy suggestions to elected representatives. public advocacy and communication to elected representatives are part of the democratic process. they have already achieved their first policy goal: the UK no longer issues new oil and gas drilling permits. https://juststopoil.org/2024/07/10/paint-the-town-orange-just-stop-oil-wins-first-demand/ https://juststopoil.org/2024/07/10/paint-the-town-orange-jus... they have set another policy goal, and i expect they won't change a winning formula.
    - 2y ago

Findecanor 2y ago

I believe they are doing this mostly to get attention, with the hope that some of the people who hear about the action will also take a little time to learn about the issue. There are climate-change protests every day worldwide that get no attention from media at all.

richbell 2y ago
YouTuber Tom Nicholas made a sort of "behind the scenes" video that explores their methods and motivations. https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU https://youtu.be/0v0dYQ9t5WU
slothtrop 2y ago
Climate-change has been salient for decades. Everyone who exposes themselves to the news-cycle is aware of it, and the attention people give to these protests is through said news. It's redundant. People have mostly made up their minds, but through message discipline it's possible to convey interesting data and that could potentially lead to follow-ups, which at best inform voting preferences or consumer choices. These stunts make the papers mostly because they're rage-bait, and consumers get their 2 min of hate. To biased readers, protests like these or those that target average people reflect negatively, which backfires on the entire ostensible "point" of these stunts (as opposed to the actual purpose) because it can be dismissed out of spite. The broken record you hear is "protests are supposed to be inconvenient". That is not true. They're supposed to win hearts and minds, engender sympathy, as that is what builds traction. It's possible to use inconvenience for that, but it's on a gradient. Civil rights protests were effective, but no one seriously believes it's because they managed to annoy and inconvenience average people really well.
legitster 2y ago
I don't know if it's the good kind of attention. It's pretty arguable that PETA adopting similar tactics has arguably slowed their cause more than helped. In PETA's case, they suck all of the air out of the room from other animal welfare organizations. These public displays do not change minds so much as they drive donations. So they end up control a bigger share of a shrinking pot. At least in PETA's case they can show examples of animal cruelty and make people aware about an issue. But I don't think there's a single person out there in the world who needs museums vandalized to learn about climate change. Meanwhile, there are lots of examples of tactful organizations that do not get headline attention but get decent policy results.

_fat_santa 2y ago

Good. My problem with Just Stop Oil is all their activism is just targeting people that have nothing to do with oil. They could be much more productive if they petitioned governments or people in power to change energy policy but no all they do is make the lives of people that have nothing to do with it miserable. Their logic goes something like: "if I splash paint on this painting or block traffic, people will see our message and that will motivate them to join our cause". But in reality those people aren't going to be motivated to join your cause, they will just think you are a giant asshat.

orwin 2y ago
To be fair, they never go for unprotected paintings, they mostly go for maximum outrage and visibility. I've talked to a Femen a few years ago (a Russian, exiled in France), asked why they go for visible but ultimately non-actionable acts, and basically her response was something like 'We want to shock the most bigoted, idiotic persons you know, so that they will talk about us to people without strong opinions at their family diners. You can't have real change even with strong words like "women are raped in their own bed" (it was waaaaay before Peniquot) if nobody is opposing you. We create an opposition to make our voice louder'. Or something like that, I mostly remember the last sentence.
mmooss 2y ago
We all have to do with oil. We all use it, and more than that, government is responsive to us. The main cause of climate change is people not doing anything about it. Building awareness and stimulating action is fundamental to any change. People respond to activism like it's some new, obviously stupid idea, rather than a technique with a long history of being effective and essential to democracy and freedom. That is, people respond to left-wing activism that way, for obvious reasons.
- lotsoweiners 2y ago
  > The main cause of climate change is people not doing anything about it. Ok so other than voting for candidates/laws that assist with it and maybe driving an EV what can an individual do? How does ruined art factor into that? > Building awareness and stimulating action is fundamental to any change. If everyone has already heard about it everyday from the media and various internet people, how does a ruined art piece stimulate additional change?

yongjik 2y ago

If I want the public to tune out of climate issues in disgust, I can't think of a more effective way than throwing soup on Van Gogh while crying "Climate!" The cynic in me wonders if somebody is funding these protestors. If I were an oil baron I would feel deeply indebted to them.

Simulacra 2y ago

Good. Two years is a proper sentence, even if they are only likely to serve half of it per the article. These kinds of moral outrage stunts do very little to further their cause, make A lot of people angry, and have the real chance of damaging property and harming people. The latter by which I'm thinking of blocking traffic, which includes emergency vehicles.