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A Soupy Saga: Climate Activists Target van Gogh Paintings

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Three climate activists poured Heinz soup all over van Gogh’s Sunflowers paintings at the National Gallery of London last month. The stunt came an hour after two other climate activists, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, were sentenced to time in jail for throwing tomato soup on a van Gogh painting at the same gallery in October 2022. Van Gogh’s paintings just can’t catch a break, it seems. Luckily, the paintings were not harmed since they were protected by glass, but some of the valuable frames were.

The latest trio of climate vandals are Stephen Simpson (71), Mary Somerville (77), and Phillipa Green (24). All five activists—the recently sentenced original duo and the three copycats from Friday—wore shirts with the logo for “Just Stop Oil,” an environmental activism group known for engaging in demonstrations protesting fossil fuels. Just Stop Oil aims to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels in the United Kingdom by 2030. The group’s manifesto trumpets apocalyptically, “Humanity is on the verge of an abyss, accelerated human induced climate change will destroy human civilisation unless emergency action is taken to rapidly reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG) to zero in a very short timescale.”

Some may recall that similar alarmist claims have been made by climate activists for many years, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, citing a UN-backed report, famously predicted in 2019 that “the world will end in 12 years” if carbon emissions weren’t reined in. Yet, despite these claims, the world still seems to be doing alright (at least from a climate perspective).

It’s not my intention here to disprove the climate change narrative, nor to dispute questions related to the use of fossil fuels. Rather, I want to examine this incident from a cultural and sociological perspective. The soup saga indicates some of the imbalances that have arisen in our society, including scientism with a doomsday-cult slant, immature and counter-productive activism, and disrespect for traditional culture.

Philosopher Edward Feser has defined scientism as “the view that all real knowledge is scientific knowledge—that there is no rational, objective form of inquiry that is not a branch of science.” Scientism thus rules out supernatural faith or even philosophy as valid means of knowing.

I think we can develop this definition even further. Scientism in its full-fledged, most extreme form rises to the level of a pseudo-religion, replacing the Christianity it dethroned; science becomes the transmission of true revelation about the universe and the means of our salvation from hunger, death, and disease via technology.

The cultural influence of scientism can be seen in our obsession with statistics, studies, and reports, which are often considered irrefutable arguments to defend a given perspective. Sometimes we even refer to science as an infallible oracle: “The science says…” or “The science doesn’t lie.” Conversely, those who oppose this all-knowing force are “anti-science” and “dangerous.”

To be clear, I bear no grudge against science. The empirical method is a wonderful means of attaining certain kinds of truth, particularly about the physical world. But it is absurd to think that science is the sole or even the most important means of acquiring truth, or that it gives the final word on all human matters. Scientism really has little to do with true science. It is a vain attempt to raise science to the level of a religion.

This pseudo-religious movement has its various offshoots and sects, one of which, I propose, is the extreme climate change alarmist movement. The latter bears striking similarities to the doomsday cults that have existed throughout history. Such cults typically hold that the end of the world is near and the only way to survive is to join the cult and do what it says.

The climate alarmist movement possesses these features: It makes exaggerated claims about a coming apocalypse, and the movement’s adherents insist that we must all do what they say to survive. The climate alarmism movement even has its own rituals—like recycling, buying sustainable products, and protesting—and its own martyrs, such as the Just Stop Oil folks.

This extreme climate change ideology brings far more harm than good, as Michael Shellenberg—who is himself a believer in climate change and in favor of reducing carbon emissions—observes in a column for Forbes. Shellenberg points out that fear-fostering apocalyptic diatribes have negative real-world impacts, such as causing anxiety in children, inciting violence between activists and the public, and limiting cheap sources of energy that poor nations need in order to develop.

In addition to harming the public, these extreme claims and actions actually hinder the movement itself. Shellenberg writes:

There is good evidence that the catastrophist framing of climate change is self-defeating because it alienates and polarizes many people. And exaggerating climate change risks distracting us from other important issues including ones we might have more near-term control over.

The van Gogh incident backs up Shellenberg’s claim that activists risk alienating the people they’re trying to win over: If you watch the video of Simpson, Somerville, and Green splashing the paintings with somebody’s dinner, you’ll hear that the onlookers are anything but sympathetic to the protestors cause.

Perhaps most importantly, according to Shellenberg, the doomsday claims are just plain false. “No credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species,” he writes.

Shellenberg’s point about the self-defeating nature of exaggerated climate alarmists bears further reflection. A lot of modern activists, especially on the left, seem more concerned with getting attention than actually converting people to their cause.

Remember the “mostly peaceful protests” of 2020? Events like this reveal that what matters to such ideologues is not so much rational discourse, persuasion, or effective action, but rather blind unwavering dedication to the cause, virtue-signaling to others who are already enlightened, venting anger in the face of an astonished and annoyed public, and ultimately intimidating the opposition into submission.

As a rule, healthy social and political movements are constructive, not destructive. This isn’t what we see with extreme climate activists who deface priceless works of art or impede the flow of traffic on busy roads.

I think the precise nature of the van Gogh vandalism says something important about these movements. Attacking a classic work of art isn’t just a way for malcontent Zoomers and aging hippies to claw for some media attention; it is also a statement about their view of culture in general.

When, back in 2022, Plummer committed the vandalism that would land her with a two-year prison sentence (and inspire Friday’s repeat attempt), she demanded of museumgoers: “What is worth more—art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?” Hidden within Plummer’s challenge and Just Stop Oil’s antics is a Marxist critique of capitalism that accuses bourgeois society of obsessing over “trivialities” such as art while the poor suffer and the world burns. This is the real import of Plummer’s words.

Plummer’s mistake, of course, is to set art and justice or art and life in opposition to one another (along with the absurd implication that somehow the painting is responsible for the alleged climate problem). It’s not an either/or! In fact, in a properly integrated society, art helps protect and promote justice and life, not undermine or oppose it.

Anyone who misses this has missed the point of art; that art celebrates the good, the true, and the beautiful (which includes the just), and none of these things can be separated.

The reduction of art to a mere tool or obstacle in a political and economic conflict is one of the great tragedies of our century. These activists attack art because, for them, reality—in keeping with the teachings of scientism—consists not of the transcendent but only of the mathematically quantifiable, dollar signs and temperatures. In that narrow world, who needs paintings?

Image credit: public domain (sunflowers); public domain (soup)