Maple syrup and Mad Libs

When radical spectacle says something different

“Should we take one Carr or two?”

The only thing more imbecilic than sheer imbecility is derivative imbecility. Shortly after young European climate activists doused a Van Gogh in soup, a couple of their Canadian counterparts here in Vancouver splashed an Emily Carr with maple syrup. You say ‘We Are the World,’ we say ‘Tears Are Not Enough’ — this is activism by way of national stereotype Mad Lib. SPANISH climate activists douse PICASSO with GAZPACHO; ITALIAN climate activists douse CARAVAGGIO with MARINARA SAUCE; AMERICAN climate activists douse ROCKWELL with LIVE AMMUNITION.

Is the maple syrup supposed to make the protest more relatably Canadian? Is it a parody of the very idea of anything being Canadian? Have I already put more thought into the semiotics of this protest than did those who carried it out?

I can’t say for sure, of course — but it does seem to me that just a few moments’ reflection would show up the obvious liabilities of this “strategy,” even before the unanimous comments sections underneath reporting of the story rendered their verdicts. First of all, when you’re part of a movement already accused of trying to drain life of its comforts and pleasures and denounced, usually at least somewhat unfairly, as a form of contemporary Puritanism, maybe almost-defacing cherished artwork like an inept vegan ISIS auxiliary isn’t the best foot to put forward.

But secondly — and this is a note relevant for progressive movements on the whole — when your cause has won mainstream acceptance and support, adopting tactics redolent of a lunatic fringe actually sets you back. The vast majority of people not only acknowledge that climate change is really happening and accept the scientific consensus for why that is, but they support bold action to slow, stop, mitigate, and reverse it. Wacko stunts like hurling viscous and patriotically-significant liquids at nationally-treasured works of art create the impression that the opposite is true; that shrill wingnuts are the kinds of people who care about climate change, while the rest of us normal people who don’t huck breakfast condiments at irreplaceable masterpieces (people who work for a living, or drive their kids to soccer, or are CEOs of the predatory death cult corporations smothering our children’s breath with their profit statements) just roll our eyes. These protesters must be marginal, or else why would they be so desperate?

That desperation and its attendant terror are of course the one thing about the protesters that most of us have no problem at all understanding. They are terrified for their future, for their present, and they’re right to be. That panic is overwhelming despite the fact that they’ve “won” the argument — in fact it’s worse because they’ve won it, because they can see that it doesn’t really matter that they have.