Leave the henges alone
No.
Two people have been arrested after Just Stop Oil activists sprayed orange powder paint over Stonehenge.
No no no. Not helping.
Members of the public attempted to stop the spraying and a visitor managed to wrestle a spray can from one of the protesters.
Wiltshire police said: “We have arrested two people following an incident at Stonehenge this afternoon. At around noon, we responded to a report that orange paint had been sprayed on some of the stones by two suspects. Officers attended the scene and arrested two people on suspicion of damaging the ancient monument. Our inquiries are ongoing.”
The evidence is pretty strong, on account of how there’s video of them doing it.
More of the same tribal/cult purity-spiral moral-outbidding dynamics that seems to perpetually engulf the far left. The people involved in Just Stop Oil are not looking outward at how to persuade others to get on board with their cause, they’re looking inward, towards each other, preoccupied with displays of moral purity within the group. Acts of outrageous behaviour like destruction of priceless artifacts of civilization are signals to their peers of their absolute, unwavering commitment to the in-group. They literally don’t care if they actually put people off their ostensible cause, to stop climate change; they’re one hundred percent consumed with upholding their own social status within the tribe.
We’re a strange species, evolved with two natures that are inherently contradictory: we’re infused with the violent, warrior temper of our bloody cousins the chimps, balanced against the peacemaking, altruistic constitution of our cousins from across the river Congo, the gentle, matriarchal bonobos.
This means our attempts to cooperate for the greater good end up overtaken by our tribalistic, vicious dark side. I wish it weren’t so. Alas.
I’m reminded of something Dave Weigel posted recently, to the effect of: if your great activist idea is something that an undercover opponent might do to discredit your movement, maybe don’t do it.
They look like men, from what I can see, but lots of trans-“women” look like men, but maybe they are trans-“women”, in which case they are allowed to do that. Saying otherwise is transphobia.
Appeals to reason only work on the reasonable. Reminds me of the vegan activists who destroyed refrigerators full of milk in protest at a small shop. The immediate consequences are that the milk will be replaced, creating a (marginally) larger demand. The wider consequences include people seeing these activists as destructive and foolish. They are not persuasive (but Martha Nussbaum is (her latest book is excellent)). Same with the use of oil; it’s everywhere, not just fuel but plastics, asphalt, synthetic rubber, lubricants, and so on. Am I persuaded by activists defacing or destroying public property? No, but I am persuaded by people who advocate cutting back, not being wasteful, being aware. There are ways to bring awareness without the destructiveness, or violation of other people’s rights in the process. I feel like the right to visit Stonehenge without having it damaged by people who don’t care about such things, is greater than the rights of people who lack the imagination to effectively get their message across. Also, people have to care in order to be persuaded or taught. From what I’ve seen, shock and awe doesn’t make people care, neither does violence.
Found the relevant post about the milk thing >>
https://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2022/concerned-individuals/
Artymorty, #1:
Or maybe not. Analysis of long-term studies of the two species has shown that in-group aggression is more prevalent among bonobos than among chimpanzees, albeit less extreme in terms of the level of violence. Bonobo aggression is more likely to be one-on-one as opposed to the gang warfare exhibited by chimps, and they don’t appear to engage in territorial battles with other groups, but they aren’t quite the peace-loving animals as was once thought.
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/04/bonobos-the-hippy-apes-may-not-be-as-peaceful-as-once-thought/
That’s interesting. I actually know very little about bonobos or chimps, but I’m interested to learn more. I didn’t quite mean my statement literally, though. More just to poetically illustrate the idea that we have deep-seated warring instincts as well as cooperative ones, and the two get frequently get tangled together in weird ways, hindering civilization’s progress.
How much of the product sprayed on Stonehenge was created from oil or its by-products? At the very least the cans would have had a plastic cap, a plastic spray nozzle and a plastic inner coating.
If they were actually keen to abandon oil, they would demonstrate how to do it.
Make tools from fallen branches and flint.
Use the tools to hunt some animals, kill and skin them, cook the meat for sustenance, and clean the skin and bones to make clothes (the bones can be made into pins and needles, to fasten the skins together with knotted sinew removed from the meat).
Next, use more stones, sticks and mud to build a weatherproof shelter.
Repeat the first two steps as often as necessary whilst foraging for fruit and seeds to grow plants for eating next year.
Too much like hard work for people who probably don’t even walk to the places they pointlessly damage.
…”TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.”
All this talk of noble apes!