One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. mastodonapp.uk/
…Arthur Balfour died in 1930 and was painted in 1914 (7 years after the oldest living person was born). It’s hanging in Trinity College, not the National Gallery. It’s really not a culturally significant piece of art.
If destruction of a painting done in 1914 and hanging in a university of a man responsible for oppression in Ireland and the current Middle East crisis (a known racist and anti-semite that passed the Aliens Act of 1905) makes you less sympathetic to ~600,000 starving people and 30,000 dead people then were you actually sympathetic to begin with?
Tired of writing this: this painting is not some culturally important piece of art. It’s a little over 100 years old, hanging in a university, of a man that was responsible for massacres in Ireland (Mitchelstown Massacre) which got him the name “Bloody Balfour”. Regardless of where you stand on Palestine, Balfour was not a good human and this is akin to toppling a minor statue of a Confederate in America - one that is not even on display to the wider public.
EDIT to add a quote from Balfour when asked about whether the treatment of Black people in South Africa was immoral:
“We have to face the facts,” Lord Balfour said. “Men are not born equal, the white and black races are not born with equal capacities: they are born with different capacities which education cannot and will not change.”
Tired of writing this, the hand wringing over university property being compared to ~30k lives and ~600k starving people has to stop.
This painting is not some culturally important piece of art. It’s a little over 100 years old (literally painted the same year my Granddad was born), hanging in a university, of a man that was responsible for massacres in Ireland (Mitchelstown Massacre) which got him the name “Bloody Balfour”, openly said that black people should be treated worse than white people, and was a known anti-semite that brought about the Aliens Act of 1905 to try and keep Jewish people out of Britain & Ireland.
Imagine a group of Princeton students cutting up a minor painting of Jefferson Davies hanging in their halls and you get roughly the same amount of “cultural loss”.
It allowed a group of people tainted by association to stop being tainted by association. It created international news coverage. It highlighted dissatisfaction at one of the leading “politician” schools in the world.
Not a bad trade for a painting that isn’t even one of the ones highlighted on the dudes Wikipedia pagee.
the hand wringing over university property being compared to ~30k lives and ~600k starving people has to stop.
Literally was my first line. The thing that got my goat was the comments lamenting the painting and saying they were now less sympathetic to Palestinians because a thing they had never heard of or seen before was destroyed in protest of that person’s legacy.
But I worry that it is dangerous to celebrate violence just because we like the cause.
I find it very disingenuous to compare vandalism to violence. When a house is burning, what’s the advice people give? Leave everything behind: things can be replaced, people can’t. This painting is digitised. It’s a minor painting. There are dozens of others. Comparing its vandalism to the violence the Palestinian people are facing is what prompted me to say “nothing of value has been lost”.
Your heart is in the right place, but this is a strawman argument.
People do die for culture, choose to die to protect their heritage. I’m sure there’s several philosophy PhDs worth of conversation to be had about that.
In this case: no history has been lost, no culture destroyed, and nothing of value lost. I suggest avoiding getting lost in hypotheticals because the actual case is a lot more clear cut. No one should lose their lives (inc the damage of a lengthy prison sentence) for this instance.
I mean, heavily related and glorifying (by being in one of the most prestigious universities in the world).
This vandal should absolutely face criminal repercussions for this though imo
I don’t know my own mind on this. First, respecting the law of the land is not always good (see: the Holocaust and slavery) and societal justice and moral rightness aren’t the same thing. Second, they did something they believe in and should absolutely be prepared to face societal justice. That doesn’t mean I would pass a sentence myself…it’s a hard one and luckily I have no power or sway in what happens to them because I’d be deliberating with myself for hours haha
Brit and avid history fan here! Stiff upper lip is a myth. We used to be a very rebelious lot:
We’re taught about Henry VIII, but not about the mass uprising he had to put down (The Pilgrimage of Grace)
We hear about the Battle of Hastings but not the Harrying of the North.
We’re never taught about the Enclosure Acts (that stole land from the common folk) and the subsequent uprising and brutal repression (including the Midlands Revolt).
We also had the Peasants Revolt trying to stop the crazy taxation during the 100 year war!
And if we’re looking for other acts of rebellion:
The Peterloo Massacre
The General Strike of 1926
The Miner’s Strikes of the 80s
The Battle of Cable Street (Police protecting Nazis)
The Battle of Lewisham (Police protecting Nazis)
But it is far, far better for those in power to make us believe we have always been meek and “stiff upper lip”
EDIT: for people looking for a complete list, this ain’t it. I just chose a few that were in my mind at the time. I also didn’t include anything to do with imposed rule or I’d just gesture vaguely at the island of Ireland.
I also didn’t include anything to do with aristocrats fighting each other. This is an incomplete list of popular uprisings to make a point.
It’s actually all English history. I avoided Scottish, NI and Welsh because rebellion against imposed rule of the English felt like a different beast to what was being discussed.
And no one in and English school is being taught about these things either.
This isn’t a complete list by any stretch of the imagination, and I avoided everything to do with the aristocracies (which includes four civil wars just from the top of my head) and anything to do with imposed rule (i.e. English to other areas of the UK).
Some more: Monmouth Rebellion & Rye House Plot, Farnley Wood Plot, The Gunpowder Plot, Bigod’s Rebellion, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Uprising, The Essex Rebellion, The Oxfordshire Uprising (yes, a different one)
The list really does go on.
EDIT for fun here are a few more:
The Lincolnshire Uprising, Yorkshire Rebellion, The Luddites, 2011 London Riots
The fact that you lived here a few years is kidna irrelevant to the history of the people of the country. We have been conditioned to think uprising, violent attacks on the people in power, and the power of masses is “just not British”. When history shows it very much is (there basically wasn’t a period for about 800 years where there wasn’t a civil war or popular uprising within England).
Been using tidal ever since Spotify’s Joe Rogan debacle. Main reason? They actually pay the artist. But the sound quality is a nice bonus as well! No regrets…other than people trying to share music with me by sending a spotify link!
It’s true, but at least half the artists I listen to I would never have found if it weren’t for streaming. Something is, after all, better than nothing.
And compared to the competition, Tidal’s payments are good:
The big thing I will say from my experience there: the people are AMAZING. I didn’t get ripped off, everyone was so friendly, got to play basketball with a group of kids and had a blast. And the nature is incredible.
It also had some of the most downtrodden areas I’ve ever seen, some of the biggest displays of wealth disparity, and after a few weeks on different islands, Manilla felt more like a theme park for the rich than any kind of city.
Overall, really recommend it, but try going off the beaten path!
Not…really. The racial hierarchy and the self-loathing are really Spain’s doing via the Church.
Spain was in control for 400 years and had clear racial caste system. They brought a new religion and used it to justify an incredibly evil rule. Lain America had governors, the Philippines had Friars (read Touch Me Not or Noli Me Tángere).
Compared with America, which in control for around 50 years and about 10% of that was the Japanese invasion. They are seen as liberators and saviours because of how utterly horrific the Japanese were (wasn’t just Korea with comfort women). In the early 20th century, a lot of the reforms in the Philippines by America were based around giving land to the farm workers and laying ground work for independence via the Insular government (so the cheap sugar supply could be blocked from entering the US market).
That’s interesting, I’ll give it a read. But I don’t entirely see how. He was first banished and then executed for his writing and thrown in an unmarked grave. During his life, his writing was the cornerstone of the burgeoning revolution against his wishes. This was all a fair chunk of time before the Spanish-American war.
Just asked my wife about this (she’s an author that’s just won funding to research and write about the history of the Philippines in her novels). These are her words paraphrased:
Oh yeah, Rizal was a reformist and thought of Spain as more of an abusive parent than something to overthrow. However, even at the time his work was really important to the revolution and his arrest led to the founding of the KKK (not that one) which was succeeded by the ongoing communist revolution. He directly, and against his will, led to the uprising that’s still a big feature of the country today.
America’s history with the country is a lot more complex than Spain. While Spain gained dominance by throwing their weight into an ongoing was between datus and changed the landscape to impose their hierarchy, America never really wanted the Philippines to begin with. Now, the Americas worship in the country is straight up horrifying, but that isn’t from the American period of rule but because of the brief period of Japanese rule as a contrast.
Coming back to this two months later. Really disagree with the comparison after reading Walkaway. It was more Ayn Rand in style than Le Guin. The characters were mouth pieces for ideologies, the story was half baked at best, and a lot of the nuance is entirely lost to “but look, they’re the bad guys and it went wrong for them!”
Not sure I’ll try again. Thanks for the recommendation, but my search continues!
How often had I overlooked women's contributions ? (lemmy.ml)
One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. mastodonapp.uk/
Right wing authoritarianism isn’t subtle. (lemmy.world)
Right wing authoritarianism isn’t subtle....
Liz Truss spent £15,000 of taxpayer money on catering during Australia flight (www.independent.co.uk)
Tidal’s subscription is getting simpler and cheaper — yes, you read that right (www.theverge.com)
They're just big fans of the cuisine or something. (lemmy.world)
We live (lemy.lol)