https://www.theepochtimes.com/opinion/is-civilization-unraveling-5575887Is Civilization Unraveling?
Two environmental activists from the collective dubbed "Riposte Alimentaire" (Food Retaliation) stand in front of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" (La Joconde) painting after hurling soup at the artwork, at the Louvre museum in Paris, on Jan. 28, 2024By Jeffrey A. Tucker
Jan. 31, 2024
NOTE: when reading at The Epoch Times, either use "Reader Mode" or disable javascript in your browser using a free add-on or extensionExcerpts:This weekend, some climate activists entered the Louvre Museum in Paris and splashed carrot soup on the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. To be sure, if such a thing happened at the Whitney Museum in New York City, no one would have noticed the difference. But the Mona Lisa is the most revered painting in all Christendom (that’s a word you don’t hear anymore!).
The painting wasn’t damaged because it is behind bullet-proof glass. Still, there is something spooky about this event.
Sure, you can chalk it up to brain-damaged climate activists who were likely doped up on something, as most are. Part of the drugs they take is ideology as currently preached by the World Economic Forum, Harvard, and the University of Paris. These stupid kids are merely putting into practice what they are being taught.
And what are they being taught? Put aside all the convoluted language and intricate theorizing in giant treatises, it comes down to one message. Civilization is corrupt. Beauty is a lie. Freedom is exploitation. Rights are myths. All institutions that people regard as serving their needs are actually wrecking mother nature and poisoning all things. Therefore none of it has value. It all needs to go.
They are so convinced of this worldview that they think they are engaged in principled and effective activism by attempting to wreck the world’s most beloved painting. You could call it insanity but then you would have to say the same about large amounts of the consensus among the globe’s top elites in media, government, nonprofit foundations, and academia. This rot is dominant among them all.
How in the world did we get to this place? Years ago, I did a deep dive into the conservative doom literature of the times, which warned of the coming of fundamental attacks on the values of the West. I took them all seriously, but only intellectually seriously. I never truly believed that the threat would leak from academia into the real world, and finally affect our public and private lives.
And yet here we are. I had wildly underestimated the power of truly bad ideas. They don’t stay in the classroom. If the kids in these chairs, cheating their way through school and popping pills to do all-nighters, end up being hired by prestigious institutions in government and finance, they come to inhabit the commanding heights of the world’s most powerful institutions.
In my most naive period of thought during the rise of digital technology, I had convinced myself that all these threats were just noise. We would overcome them all through wild innovation and the unleashing of the creative energy of entrepreneurship in the digital space. In this case, old-time institutions like universities hardly matter. That’s the old world whereas we were building the new one.
This outlook blinded me to the rot underneath our feet. The new digital companies grew and were eventually captured by the enemy. The media played along. The administrative state which no one elected sunk its claws into everything and everybody. This is how a wicked worldview was eventually foisted on the world. It all seemed to happen while we slept.
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The revolution against civilization takes many forms, some calm and seemingly scientific and others preposterous and directly destructive. They speak of the need to stop climate change but the real target is your standard of living, even your ability to stay warm in your home or travel distances. They speak of the need for “sustainable” agriculture but they are really going after traditional farming and ranching, even your ability to afford beef and pork. They talk of diversity, equity, and inclusion but it is really about targeting for exclusion an entire group of people who are resisting the great reset.
Elites sniff at this sort of talk, as if it is all too extreme and alarmist. They say we should just calm down and relax because everything is going to be fine. But what if they are wrong? What if there is no turning back from where the elites are taking us? I ask because there really is no turning back. One core pillar of civilized living—even the basics like freedom and human rights—are gone, there is no getting them back, not for generations long after we have passed from this earth.
Those are some big thoughts but these are emergency times. The attempted defacing of the Mona Lisa might seem like a cheap prank by some crazy kids but I fear it is symbolic of much more. How much more of this do we need to see before we realize that these are the times that could change the whole course of history? We either do something or watch it all unravel.
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