The young green alarmists who insist the climate is hurting our planet have taken to destroying fine art in their cause. Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring, Klimt’s Life and Death, da Vinci’s Mona Lisa — all have been paint-splattered, glued or otherwise damaged. So rampant has been the deliberate destruction of national treasures that an art website has published a list of the works attacked for their beauty, just in one year.
These dissidents are also keen to disrupt any sense of normalcy, to interrupt the marvel of a well-functioning city, as they might say, to make the comfortable uncomfortable. So they glue their hands to street pavement — bottle-necking traffic, sometimes for hours as police work to jackhammer the cement off their hands.
In an international “economic blockade to free Palestine,” pro-Hamas protestors Monday blocked blocked traffic to O’Hare Airport in Chicago, forcing people to leave their cars and take a long walk to the terminal to try to make their flights. From AP: They shut down “all vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge and chained themselves to 55-gallon drums filled with cement across Interstate 880 in Oakland.” In Brooklyn they blocked Manhattan-bound traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.
In the case of the green alarmists, they are laser-focused on a singular unproven claim, that the planet is warming and that this will destroy the environment.
For this hypothetical threat the greenies give precedence over feeding the hungry. They also make wild claims that go unchallenged in our pathetic media, like the recent argument that humans contribute to climate change — by breathing. For their all-or-nothing view of the world, we are asked to abandon fossil fuels, buy electric cars that are made from dirty coal and give up gas stoves and functioning washer dryers. I remember when the anti-nuclear activists tried this argument — over the hypothetical fear that the world would be annihilated by nuclear weapons. That was 40 years ago.
Beyond publicity for their cause, it is worth pondering why these activists would target beauty. And the reason is clear: they want a world stripped of natural beauty, even the beauty created by artists, because they want a world where there is no hierarchy of achievement or wealth or charm or elegance, or even history, because, well, everyone is equal and these are no exceptional people. Except of course them. They are exempted from the rules of civility and order, because they say so. And the coarse culture we have created allows them to destroy in the name of left-wing protest. Right-wing protesters of course would be jailed, some for many years.
This attack on beauty also extends to clothing, a mirror of unique personality and preference. I remember the first time I flew on an airplane— it was the 1950s and I was 8 years old. My mother had dressed me and my sister in jackets, Mary Jane shoes and white gloves. I smile at the memory. The other day when I had a four-hour layover in Charlotte, and after some people watching, I concluded that the pandemic seems to have bequeathed us a Zoom-ready era of baggy pajamas in public, as if we were all channeling the homeless among us. Airport terminals offer a parade of the slovenly clothed. Listen, no one is more grateful than I for the trend of comfortable clothes and shoes. I have long-since lost my waist to age, and my feet have been misshapen since birth. But people, put some style in your wardrobe — wear a t-shirt that draws a laugh, clothe yourself in colors that flatter you, and more than anything, put a smile on your face. As author T. J. Martinell wrote on intellectualtakeout.org,
The big thing about all this is that if you have the right aesthetics, it will infuriate all the right people because they will very much pick up what you’re laying down, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. Also, it signals to others what values you hold without having to talk about it. You will attract the right kind of people and repel the undesirables.
One sure rebuttal to the toxic political tactics of our era is the joy expressed by people around the world on seeing the solar eclipse. Another is the return of cursive writing.
This system of translating block print into something beautiful, something stylish, something personal, apparently fell from favor in recent decades as educators reasoned that a digital world had no need of such flowery writing since everyone had computers, often as accessible as their cell phones.
New research shows that learning to write in script actually helps us think. On a computer you can easily edit, delete, re-arrange. With hand-written notes, you have to ponder before you write, as pen strokes are not as easily erased. California, a state that US News & World Report rated #38 in pre-k-12 education, recently decided to bring back cursive writing in elementary school. Legislators argued that it would improve brain development, reading skills and eye-hand coordination. One teacher added: without it, students cannot read historical documents — or their ancestors’ letters.
But cursive writing is also a thing of beauty. And in a world of unhinged protesters, grunge attire and ugly rhetoric, beauty is an anecdote to what ails us.
Is there anything more beautiful than nature — with its marvelous colors and unexpected shapes — the flight of birds so majestic or of beaches so calming? To people of faith, these are gifts of God’s hand. To people of science, they are geological events. But all of us share an awe, a wonder, at their sight. No less beautiful are the visions created by man — architecture that makes you marvel, museums filled with art and inspiration, libraries of books and papers to delight the mind. It is hard to understand why anyone — especially those who profess to care about nature — would set out to destroy such beauty, or disparage our applause on seeing it.
Beauty can unite us in aspiration. It can inspire us to further creative magic — in poetry or music. It can soothe the fires within our souls and calm the fear in our hearts. Culture is the antidote to politics. We should embrace it, or we will be swallowed up in a world of AI robots, online trolling, digital pornography — and protestors whose only aim is to make our walls ugly and our streets impassable.
Look at a painting, ponder the sunrise, celebrate the geese on a lake, tend a garden of herbs. This is our world too, and it’s time to reclaim it from the green climate warriors and other activists who ignore our blessings and count only their alarmist threats.
Thank you for another excellent article and so on point!
A while back, I put a place holder in 1984, where Julia said, “You can turn around now” after she puts on make-up for Winston. Orwell writes, “The improvement in her appearance was startling.” It’s a good reminder to look our best – no matter what!
Here, here! As Senator Tom Cotton said about the protestors on the Golden Gate Bridge in CA..."if they tried that in my state many of them would be going home wet..." I think Senator Cotton was Implying many of his constituents would throw the protesters over the bridge into the water. Probably not a good idea for protestors on the Golden Gate...but, you get the point. Stay strong and stay beautiful America!