Eye for an eye
Sunday, October 07, 2007
So I happened to catch this headline while browsing the news: "Gang Punches Hole in Monet Work". It seems a set of drunken miscreants (at last a chance to use that word!) managed to bypass security at a French museum and punch a hole in Monet's Le Pont d'Argenteuil.
The picture they have on the website of the painting with a hole in it is heartbreaking.
And while the French Culture Minister Christine Albanel is said to have responded "this was an attack on French heritage," I disagree. I feel that it's an attack on humanity as a whole, an act of pure, wanton destruction that targets the whole of the world and aims to deface and devalue the greatest works that humanity has created.
The article states that the perpetrators haven't been caught yet, but when they do, I fear that the French courts won't provide the kind of punishment these bastards deserved. I'm talking disfigurement. No imprisonment, no fine... just disfigure them so that every time they look in a mirror, they'll remember what they did and how they - even drunk - tried to rob humanity that day.
Perhaps I'm over-reacting. But perhaps not. Sometimes I feel that a punishment ought to fit a crime, and this is a crime of proportions that many might not understand. Art like this is a record of the human race; of what we, as a species, are capable of creating and achieving. To destroy it is to spit on all of us.
And that's the end of THAT rant.
Update: I saw this article before it was linked to on Fark.com. I only mention this because I'm usually reluctant to post fun links from Fark unless I can offer my usual scintillating opinion on them.
The picture they have on the website of the painting with a hole in it is heartbreaking.
And while the French Culture Minister Christine Albanel is said to have responded "this was an attack on French heritage," I disagree. I feel that it's an attack on humanity as a whole, an act of pure, wanton destruction that targets the whole of the world and aims to deface and devalue the greatest works that humanity has created.
The article states that the perpetrators haven't been caught yet, but when they do, I fear that the French courts won't provide the kind of punishment these bastards deserved. I'm talking disfigurement. No imprisonment, no fine... just disfigure them so that every time they look in a mirror, they'll remember what they did and how they - even drunk - tried to rob humanity that day.
Perhaps I'm over-reacting. But perhaps not. Sometimes I feel that a punishment ought to fit a crime, and this is a crime of proportions that many might not understand. Art like this is a record of the human race; of what we, as a species, are capable of creating and achieving. To destroy it is to spit on all of us.
And that's the end of THAT rant.
Update: I saw this article before it was linked to on Fark.com. I only mention this because I'm usually reluctant to post fun links from Fark unless I can offer my usual scintillating opinion on them.
posted by Burton at 5:30 PM
1 Comments:
I agree.
And that's all I have to say about that.
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