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New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#571

Post by nephihaha »

teamonkey wrote: post #566
nephihaha wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not consider myself English, but Scottish. I remember ?fifteen years ago defending the St. George's Cross from English people arguing against it. The irony! We do occasionally get billboards with company X saying they support England, but other than that it isn't an issue in Scotland. Like Billy Bragg says, there is a strong case for reclaiming the English flag from the far right. The Union Jack in Scotland has…

The Union Flag is much more of a right-wing symbol in Scotland, as you say (I lived in Scotland for 10 years) but in England the GC is far more associated with nationalism and the right, while the Union Flag is a bit more VE Day, church fetes and Cool Britannia, and gives more of a “working together” vibe than that of oppression. Much of that is due to schooling and media conditioning, of course, but the flags mean d…

In Scotland it varies by region. In the north east and the borders, it is more innocuous although contentious. In the Central Belt around Edinburgh and Glasgow it is often linked with working class loyalism, when it's not on a hotel or a government building.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#573

Post by appreciatorBus »

Ralfp wrote: post #548
appreciatorBus wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the extra time you invested to let me know. So to return the favor, I’ll add a couple of sentences too. A year ago I would never have made such a comment. My understanding about the issues boiled down to approximately: - queer theory is some sort of reasonably academic pursuit that has something to do with gay people - trans is just gay rights 2.0; clearly anyone who has any concerns is a raging bigot Ne…

Noting that you use exclusively gender critical sources (and some very poor ones to add, like Littman's "study") while also having history of blaming "wokism", I seriously doubt you have given this subject a fair consideration. Interesingly, so called "gender critical" movement is increasingly pivoting to other conservative or plainly reactionary talking points. For example, the book you are recommending makes a thin…

Classic “everyone who disagrees with me is secretly a bigot and a Nazi” energy here.

Nothing you’ve said actually addresses any arguments.

Can you actually give a refutation of Joyce’s arguments are you going just going to stick to ad hominem?

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#574

Post by rjinman »

rjinman wrote: post #401
zarzavat wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure the piece is a commentary on the recent phenomenon of people of a right-wing political orientation hanging up the England flag everywhere , to the consternation of local governments who have to spend money taking them down. From a British perspective there's no ambiguity, flag shagging is a right-wing activity.

Is it? Most people I know who have flags proudly displayed are left wing and their flags are usually one of: the Palestinian flag, the ukrainian flag, the LGBT rainbow flag, or the trans flag.

It’s amazing how everyone thinks this sculpture’s message doesn’t apply to them. “My side’s flags are different, it’s the other side’s flags that are bad”. So many people here making this argument. It’s beyond parody, yet really so predictable. Amazing lack of self awareness. I thought this place was more rational than Reddit, but apparently not!

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#576

Post by mike_hearn »

brookst wrote: post #500
mike_hearn wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, London is famously free of surveillance and the Met is famously tolerant of political speech. Certainly, if someone had put up a statue of a pro-Palestine protester being blinded by a flag Sadiq Khan would just stand around being puzzled and letting things be. No question about it.

Oh, if you’re moving the goalposts from “Banksy had official support putting it up” to “the authorities reacted differently after the fact than they would have for others”, then I actually agree.

Official support and not interfering with it being put up are nearly the same thing. It's not like throwing up a statue is some complex operation only governments can carry out.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#577

Post by EchoReflection »

mr-wendel wrote: post #544

Rather than try to score points for team X (or against team Y), I'll quote one of my favs. Please generalize as needed to suite your perspective. "I don't get all choked up about yellow ribbons and American flags. I see them as symbols, and I leave them to the symbol-minded." -George Carlin

that's a good quote. I have to say though, despite the appeal of "rejecting 'tribalism' ", it is (or should be) "undeniable" that some "tribes" are "better" than others. There are reasons literally nobody wants to go to North Korea and people all over the world want to "flee" to countries that are meritocracies and support ideas like freedom of speech, women's rights, freedom of religion, etc. "Nobody" would claim (anymore) that "life is 'better' in countries that still have slaves".

Modern Slavery Stats:

1. Asia and the Pacific: ~29.3 million (6.8 per 1000 ppl)

2. Africa: ~7.0 million (5.2 per 1000)

3. Europe and Central Asia: ~6.4 million (6.9 per 1000)

4. Americas: ~5.1 million (5 per 1000)

5. Arab States: ~1.7 (10.1 per 1000 [highest] )

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#578

Post by IAmBroom »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #569
ggm wrote: post #2

The point is not just that he's blinded by the flag: He's boldly marching into the void, confident. "wrapped in the flag" is a great saying.

I see that we have presumed the gender and age of this figure, or we’ve accepted the headline as definitive interpretation of it.

The figure is dressed as a traditional Western business/politician man. The person is also weighty - not at all slim - which is consistent with middle or old age.

Since that's all the info it gives us, it is acceptable to believe what we are shown is what we are "supposed to" see.

When Whistler paints one half of his mother's profile, I just naturally assume she has the other half of her body, too.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#579

Post by IAmBroom »

card_zero wrote: post #376
leourbina wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet here here we all are taking about it. Art is about inciting a response, and he’s done it. Whether we think he’s a hack or not is irrelevant - he has the world’s attention.

Where does the "art is about inciting a response" theory originate from? I went and looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_art but couldn't find it there. The "anti-essentialist" section is good, though, I think. It has Berys Gaut listing ten properties of art, all of which are nice-to-have but none of which are essential. Then if a piece ticks lots of boxes it's a shoo-in, but if it doesn't tick many of t…

You are both entitled to your own definitions of "art".

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#580

Post by tim333 »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #565
tim333 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of Americans like Musk et al get upset that we have some muslim immigrants. You get a lot of this weird we're colonised stuff when it's actually about 7% of the population and we used to do a lot of real colonisation the other way around with British India and the like.

British people were never anywhere close to 7% of the population of British India.

I was trying to say muslims are about 7% of the UK population.
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