The social cost of Just Stop Oil's stunts

Embed from Getty Images

I don't look at the Spectator much these days, but Stephen Daisley makes an important on Just Stop Oil's stunts:

It is not true that spraying orange cornflour on Stonehenge or chucking tomato soup on a van Gogh does no long-term harm. It undermines the unspoken system of trust upon which so many social arrangements are predicated. 

Every time Just Stop Oil pulls one of these stunts, it increases the likelihood that museums, galleries and heritage sites will put more distance between their wares and the general public. 

Places and objects that, at present, any ordinary member of the public can view up close and perhaps even interact with will eventually become sights to be peered at from a distance, behind protective screens or over the shoulders of burly security guards. 

There is a price to teaching public venues to be suspicious of visitors and it is a price we all pay.