“How throwing soup at the Mona Lisa can help fight climate change”
You can read this opinion piece if you want, but the headline accurately conveys all you need to know by itself, I hope. The author, an associate professor of environmental studies at USC (so you know the quality of critical thinking and ethical analysis they are teaching there), essentially is making an argument for terrorism, because sometimes it works.
“Objections to acts of climate activism such as the latest food fight at the Louvre are understandable but might miss the point. Protesters’ perceived madness is indeed method,” Shannon Gibson writes. And the method is attracting attention to a cause by disruptive, selfish and destructive acts having no relationship to the goals of the activists. In some respects, violent acts of terrorism are easier to rationalize: at least those seeking a Palestinian state are directing their “method” at those with some direct relationship to the entity the terrorist blame for their plight. Throwing tomato soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” or the Mona Lisa has no such relevance.
Gibson argues, “When in-your-face activism takes place at the same time as formal institutional challenges, studies show the combination can help increase awareness of the problem and support for moderate action. Researchers call this the “radical flank effect.” It was effective for both the civil rights and feminist movements, and it is evident in other political movements in the U.S. today.”
Translation: The ends justify the means.
Such obnoxious advocacy can work when public officials and corporate leadership lack courage, integrity and principles: we saw this in play when the unhinged George Floyd riots prompted waves of groveling “Black Lives Matter” statements of support from the corporate sector and stampeded inept public officials into pursuing destructive “defund the police” policies and giving green lights to irresponsible “reparations” projects.
The antidote to such activist tactics is the cognitive dissonance scale.
When social change advocates adopt tactics that are violent, ugly, destructive or especially stupid, the conduct should drag down the public’s opinion of both the activists and the causes they represent. Even if climate change was in the plus territory for a bystander, destructive conduct is usually far enough in negative territory to pull that positive sentiment below zero. Much of the time, that’s exactly what it does. If people who are true believers in taking draconian measures to combat global warming, after deep thought and analysis, conclude that throwing tomato soup at a painting or super-gluing themselves to street pavement is a rational approach to accomplishing their goal, they risk raising a rebuttable presumption that similarly flawed reasoning is behind their mission as well as their message.
I know that’s their effect on me, and always has been, from when I saw Vietnam protesters burn the American flag, through watching emerging feminists burning their bras. And those protests both made more sense than throwing soup at the Mona Lisa.
Many right-tilting commentators who share my contempt for today’s journalists have pointed to this piece and its headline as proof that journalists, who suffered a lot of lay-offs last month, particularly at the LA Times, “never would be missed,” as Ko-Ko sings in “The Mikado.” I disagree. It is important that the pubic gets to understand the thinking of radical academics like Gibson, so Dr. Festinger’s scale can work its magic.
Ethics Alarms 
Actions such as this sadden me greatly because of lost or possibly lost history. While nothing is gained towards resolving whatever issues individuals say they are fighting for doing these types of actions, the destruction is still allowed by governments and establishments such as the Louvre, so these actions keep occurring and escalating.
Since governments are not going to do anything to end this violence and destruction, maybe a better approach would be for individuals to stop attending places no matter what type of business it is, and the loss to a company, no matter what kind of business, will cause the businesses to force the governments to enforce common sense, and decency.
Possibly, Since the police or whatever entity of government does not or can not house all those they arrest, the police, etc., can keep them detained until they prove the individual is who they are, trace whatever benefits they and their parents have, and the individuals and parents lose whatever benefits for at least a few years which will be a wake-up call to others planning such destructive actions to think of better solutions to their issues.
Somewhat OT: The Unreported Story Society is re-enacting the Mann v Steyn defamation trial day-by-day with actors reading the transcript, and the narrators providing context. Climate Change on Trial is the name of the series.
As usual, the Babylon Bee is spot on:
https://babylonbee.com/news/to-protect-against-climate-protestors-louvre-adds-laser-eyes-to-mona-lisa
PWS
That’s just sad.
I’m not an art expert, but I would guess that while people can view the Mona Lisa in the Louvre, it’s probably behind something that protects it from knives, fire, bullets, small artillery, light pollution, chemicals, and yes, even soup. What’s especially interesting is that whatever protection is in place likely derives from fossil fuels.
Sarah B., care to chime in on that?
And I would have to agree with the OP: if attempting to destroy art is considered a valid response to concerns about climate change, how little is actually known about the subject?
It brings to mind a bumper sticker we saw when driving through the Texas panhandle years ago: “If Obama is the answer, how stupid is the question?”
I would paraphrase that to: “If vandalism is the answer,…”
Like more and more art these days, it’s behind some sort of composite shield. It also has rope standoffs that keep people farther away than on most other art, but that’s mostly for crowd control; it’s nearly impossible to get more than a long-distance snapshot of it. Strange, it’s sort of the “Kardashian” of paintings…famous because it’s famous… for being stolen in 1911.
IMO, it’s not even the most interesting (or best) DaVinci in the Louvre, which supposedly has about 25% of his work. The ML was in his possession when he died in France.
^^ Sort of went off topic and into the weeds there, sorry.
(1) There is a danger to this. If only 10% of the public is capable of critical thought in the face of authority, then having all their education, media, and government spout the same nonsensical ‘science’ is very dangerous. Only a select few will be able to see through to the insanity and illogic of the party line.
(2) They are trying to deface paintings because they are ‘oil’ paintings. The climate change adherents aren’t capable of distinguishing vegetable oils from ‘rock’ oil (petroleum). There are examples of them blockading shipments of vegetable oil from food processing plants.