Political Violence Is A Threat to Democracy — Unless It's The Good Kind
Political Violence Is A Threat to Democracy — Unless It's The Good Kind
The media shouldn't pick and choose which types of violence to be outraged about, much less encourage it.
Which of the following two statements is more likely to result in or encourage violence?
Statement 1, made in the wake of widespread rioting and vandalism across American cities: “One thing above all else will restore order to our streets: an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
Statement 2, a call to fight climate change with large scale, violent sabotage aimed at fossil fuels facilities: “When activists… smashed gas stations in April this year, they hit the nail on the head… When governments refuse to undertake this work, it is up to the rest of us to initiate it. That is the rationale for sabotage: to aim straight for the bags of coal.”
The first statement resulted in a New York Times staff revolt that led to the dismissal of the page’s opinion editor and a 325-word editor’s note that said, among other things, that the “tone of the essay in places is needlessly harsh and falls short of the thoughtful approach that advances useful debate” and “should not have been published.” (This, as many pointed out at the time, came from same the newspaper that published an essay by an FBI-wanted terrorist entitled, “What We, the Taliban Want,” presumably written with that elusive “thoughtful approach that advances useful debate.”)
The second statement is by Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire, and appeared in a recent New York Times Opinion essay under the new leadership, with no editor’s note and no newsroom drama.
To be clear, neither Malm’s statement nor the title of his book are metaphorical. This man wants the oil industry to get wrecked. Literally.
The recent tomato soup attack by climate-activists (or, in the spirit of the Times’s Taliban essay, eco-terrorists) on Van Gogh’s masterpiece Sunflowers gave rise to Malm’s essay. Malm professes to being dismayed initially at news of the souping, but once he realized no harm was done to the painting, he had a change of perspective, deciding that such attacks on priceless cultural artifacts might “further the cause”, much like the other acts of property destruction already in his arsenal. Threatening “something innocent and beautiful,” after all, gets you headlines.
This is not the first time a mainstream publication has leant its platform to Malm. In September 2021, The New Yorker’s David Remnick hosted him on a podcast, in which Malm “insists that the environmental movement reconsider its roots in nonviolence.” While Malm says he is “in favor of destroying machines, property—not harming people,” what’s less clear is how Malm proposes to make sure no one is harmed when blowing up pipelines, “smash[ing] gas stations,” and “storm[ing] a construction site” to “utterly wreck machinery and other equipment.” Especially given the scale required for such actions to actually stop oil and gas production in wealthy countries within 12 years, Malm’s stated goal.
While Vox’s entry in the genre does not mention Malm by name, the Sunflowers incident inspired eco-terror cheerleading at that publication as well. Aja Romano, a Vox culture writer, penned an article asking “How many van Goghs is one Earth worth?”, and sub-headlined, “We’re still contemplating the thorny brilliance of throwing soup on Sunflowers.” Romano even managed to spin this act of vandalism into a form of art appreciation.
“This seems to be the ultimate utility of throwing tomato soup on van Gogh’s Sunflowers: not to grab attention or cause mayhem, but to activate our love of art, our sense of wonder and awe and reverence,” Romano writes.
Here’s also a Tweet from Vox’s culture editor:
The soup attack on Van Gogh has already inspired copycats: mashed potatoes on a Monet in Germany and more soup and superglue on The Girl With the Pearl Earring at The Hague. So with any luck (and a healthy arsenal of vegetables and canned soup), perhaps the Renaissance, as it were, that Vox is pining for is in the offing.
Or, more likely, one of these attacks will permanently damage or destroy a masterpiece and, if Andreas Malm gets his way, attacks on fossil-fuel facilities will escalate and spread until one day, it’s not just machines that get destroyed.
The media has been, to say the least, equivocal in its concern over the spread of violent rhetoric. In August, the New York Times published an article entitled “As Right-Wing Rhetoric Escalates, So Do Threats and Violence.” As the headline indicates, most of the article focused on one side of the ideological divide, but did note that “Republicans have often criticized Democrats for paying scant attention to the Kavanaugh incident [assassination attempt], and for only caring about aggression when it comes from the right.”
Ironically enough, the Times itself has run but one article on the Kavanaugh incident, not even reporting the indictment of the suspect by a grand jury a week after his arrest. But in the wake of the heinous attack on Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year old husband Paul, the Times was again in the mood for sweeping generalizations with: “Pelosi Attack Highlights Rising Fears of Political Violence.”
Vox, which has has run zero articles on the Kavanaugh assassination attempt, also chimed in, Tweeting a link to the Times piece with “The attack against Nancy Pelosi’s husband isn’t an outlier, but part of a growing wave of right-wing threats against political officials.”
The coarsening of political rhetoric on the right surely reflects the significant influence of Donald Trump and his often flippant and promiscuous attitude about violence, including his initial encouragement of the January 6th takeover of the Capitol and subsequent tepid calls for protesters to “go home” after the damage had been done.
Trump also certainly brought out the worst of his adversaries, with comedian Kathy Griffin’s bizarre and grisly image of herself holding Trump’s severed head — just the first of a series of incidents in which prominent leftists gave themselves special dispensations to celebrate violence against the then president. (The New York Times ends up on this list, as well, with its publication of a snuff fantasy by a writer commissioned by the paper for a counterfactual feature about Trump’s Secret Service detail aiding and abetting his assassination).
But in the end, arguments about which side advocates violence more often or more egregiously are less important than rejecting outright the dubious principle underlying those rationalizations: that the ends justify the violent means.
Our political, cultural and social disagreements should be hashed out with debate and peaceful actions, not guns, punches, or soup cans. If institutions such as the New York Times are willing to give advocates of violence an open platform in an attempt to attract others to adopt their destructive tactics, lives will be in danger and the temperature of the discourse will continue to rise.
The infantile narcissists of the internet age can only repeat the same act of auto-fellation over and over, just in different settings and contexts: they call this "raising awareness", which of course means raising awareness of themselves and how special and stunning and brave they are.
As they are completely devoid of wisdom, gratitude, reverence or discipline, they cannot build anything of lasting worth but can only destroy what they can never create.
Thus we have the current modern spectacle of a public tantrum followed by clouds of pseudoradical canned jargon painting said tantrum in the most flattering light.