Meet the new generation of European intellectuals: fluid in principles, fragile in identity, relativist in morals
In Syria, the Islamic dictatorship has just removed the Mona Lisa from school textbooks.
Meanwhile, thanks to Art Basel, some of the world’s most precious works of art arrived in Paris. Most of the art fair continued as planned at the Grand Palais, but the weekend was cancelled.
Douglas Murray discusses this in The Spectator.
An art critic named Louisa Buck, who writes for The Art Newspaper, speaking about the chaos in the city and Art Basel, posted admiration– — not for the art, but for the vandalism.
Buck wrote:
“For me the most powerful work of art encountered in the last 48 hours was the defaced sculpture under threatening skies in Place de la République, passed while I was heading to Gare du Nord, which speaks of the fury and disillusionment toward indifferent governments and a savage police force and is not limited only to France.”
To express such sentiments, any person-especially an art critic-must have completely lost their mind. The monument in question is one of Paris’s landmarks, the statue of Marianne.
Édouard Louis, the French literary phenomenon translated all over the world, defended the looting and riots in the city that made him rich and famous:
“I am in favor of setting the streets of Paris on fire; I am in favor of going and smashing things. Doing politics means having, or not having, blood on one’s hands. There is no great revolution without excesses.”
Which “things”? Dior shops? Police stations? Why not the Louvre? Or the libraries.
Free Free Paristein!
Édouard Louis embodies with didactic precision the psychology of the postmodern intellectual: fluid in principles, fragile in identity, relativist in morals.
Meanwhile the barbarians roam unpunished under Palestinian Arab flags. Politicians are impotent, the forces of order are defenseless, and the media complain about the “difficult conditions” in which these “poor children” live in their schools.
Barbarians just set fire to the entrance of the Édouard-Herriot high school in Lyon.
They shout, celebrate, exult, while inside the firefighters rushed to save the lives of other students who had decided to enter.
If it is not yet a total collapse, it is certainly its harbinger.
One day, perhaps not far off, it will therefore be we who turn off the lights. We will have done so with the best intentions, in the name of sensitivity, coexistence, “complexity.” The veil on the Mona Lisa will not arrive as a decree from an emir, but as a recommendation from one of our “ethics committees,” or perhaps a judge.
Every living culture has its forms of refusal and its symbols that cannot be profaned without heavy consequences. When these boundaries are declared arbitrary or oppressive, one does not obtain greater freedom: one obtains a void in which the strongest advance.
The Israeli embassy in Dublin published a series of posts depicting European works of art-including the Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s David-reworked in an Islamist key. The images were accompanied by the caption: “Israel is the last frontier of the free world.”
The statue of Molly Malone, symbol of Dublin, was depicted wearing a niqab, accompanied by the text: “Israel now, Dublin will be next.”
An image of the statue of David, portrayed with an explosive belt and a Palestinian keffiyeh, was addressed to Italy-“Israel now, Italy will be next”-while the Mona Lisa, wearing a hijab and holding a large rocket, bore the caption: “Israel now, Paris will be next.”
Ten years ago, a headline of this kind might have sounded delusional to some prophetic to others. Today it is simply chronicle.
Very, very difficult times await us, at the conclusion of this drama without mercy. Because it is impossible to feel mercy for those who have condemned themselves to such an absurd end.