Art theft always pissed me off, because it’s not even about being able to enjoy the stolen property you’ve stolen (or had stolen on your behalf). A rich collector could commission a perfect replica of nearly any work of art for a fee on the order of maybe a few tens of thousands of dollars, so it’s not about being able to have something you like to look at in your home. It’s about denying that enjoyment to everyone else.
Unspeakable demonstration of the power of blind entropy in action.
It’s hard to blame the mother, unless she was fully aware of the aesthetic - not just the economic - implications of her actions. Otherwise, it’s as if she was throwing away that copy of Action Comics #1 your father left in his childhood bedroom.
Which still doesn’t make it any less tragic.
What a gutpunch of pure stupidawful.
Flow my tears, the artist said.
I lack words.
Equally tragic that most people are never educated as to why good art differs from what you can buy at Walmart or your local grocery store.
“Cheap wall-sized prints of cheaply-made paintings for 99 bucks? How is that not a good deal?”
This could be a movie… in which the mother has to choose between her love for art and her love for her own son.
If team highly-sophisticated-radioisotope-analysis comes through on this one, I’m going to venture a guess that mommy is going to regret her plan. Hard.
If there was the slightest chance that the authorities would be willing to let them off lightly, that chance would be contingent on getting the goods back in decent condition… If they have enough proof to convict and proof that the paintings are never coming home, that pretty much removes the incentive to do anything other than make as much of an example of them as they can get away with…
There’s a follow-up article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2013/jul/17/dutch-art-heist-paintings-burned
You know, now that it’s known she might have destroyed these paintings, it could make things worse not only for her son, but for her as well.
It’s hard to blame the mother
Wha? Not really that hard at all. Even a bumpkin would know she was burning something priceless. (She knew Son had stolen it from an art museum.)
She can’t drop it off somewhere?
This really does deserve life imprisonment or the maximum punishment, whichever is more.
I know I don’t always have the same instincts as other humans – family loyalty is a bit of a mystery to me as a result. It seems so utterly senseless to sacrifice the property of the entire world for one corrupt person’s freedom.
Most of humanity celebrates family bonds as the height of humanity. I guess I look at them as the ties that bind wife beaters and child abusers to their victims, and that keep filial love alive between a mother and her serial killer son.
I know I’m coming across as terribly cynical here, folks, but a story like this brings it out in me.
This really does deserve life imprisonment or the maximum punishment,
whichever is more.
YES. Lock this piece of shit up and throw away the key. What she did was infinitely worse than what her son did. Yet another human whose existence the world would not miss.
I have the sneaking suspicion that humans aren’t clannish assholes with a raging in-group bias and a nigh-unlimited potential for guilt-free outgroup victimization because it’s a nice thing; but because it’s an adaptive thing.
Now, if we can establish mechanisms to make it maladaptive…perhaps we can effect improvements.
Group bonds are like any other part of evolution: good for the group as a whole, but flawed. I would rather say that the height of Humanity is how humans can override and choose the groups they belong to. Part of why people like this mother are considered “backward” is because they are blind to how this group fidelity is actually harmful. What makes us as a species successful is our balance between being a hive creature and being individuals.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
