Why this was ever considered “art” I will never know, but there was supposed to be a film shown at the San Francisco Art Institute that depicted animals being bludgeoned, with a discussion to follow. Stupid and cruel. But we have seen other deeply offensive “art” presented before by institutes and museums—and protests pressuring to shut them down. But those protests are usually for naught because the “arteests” and the First Amendment Crowd always go into high dudgeon about the importance of the free expression, even if it profoundly offends. Which is right, although one wishes these people would be more considerate of their neighbors’ sensibilities.
Protests over this junk would have been very appropriate, but the thuggish method by which animal rights activists closed down the exhibit was definitely not. From the story:
Raping “for the animals?” If this were a “Piss Christ” kind of exhibit and “conservative” threats shut it down in this manner, the media, the First Amendment Crowd, the artist community would never stop screaming. But mark my words, this particular offensive free speech will be squashed by threats of violence with nary a peep.“We’ve gotten dozens of threatening phone calls that targeted specific staff people with death threats, threats of violence and threats of sexual assaults,” said Art Institute President Chris Bratton. “We remain committed to freedom of speech as fundamental to this institution, but we have to take people’s safety very seriously.”
But this is the point: I know of only two movements that so readily and consistently resort to violence and threats of violence to promote their fundamentalism, and so frequently get their way because of it: Extremist jihadists and extremist animal rights activists. The first are more dangerous, but at least they don’t pretend to be peaceable.
