Baillie Gifford and Arts Sponsorship

[Sausagenbacon]

Aibu to feel f***g depressed about the future of culture in this country. Book festivals and galleries turn down sponsorship from BG due to threats of disruption from Fossil Free Books.
Just Stop Oil damage paintings (and no one seems to be arrested).
I don't know if anyone has read Should We Stay Or Should We Go, by Lionel Shriver, but there's a section in the book describing a society, not to far away, where protestors have destroyed public art. And I think we're rapidly moving towards it.
I hate people (and I really DO hate them) who feel entitled to do this. This culture is public culture, for everyone, and is often free - if you want to protest, why not do something that would effect YOU, not people who are often poorer than you?
Bastards

It’s wrong think in all its glory, isn’t it? See also disrupting someone’s wedding….

I absolutely agree with you. The authors who signed the letter asking the book festival in Edinburgh to end their association with Baillie Gifford are living in an absolute bubble. Finding an alternate sponsor is going to be incredibly difficult and puts the book festival's future at risk- is this what authors want?

At least it demonstrates what a total tool Nish Kumar is

I can’t stand Lionel Shriver so not read this book. However, the anti book and those oil on things crowd are very misguided if they think destroying things is any way forward. There are elements of new tech (internet, heat pumps, solar panels) that are not any better for the planet than stuff they replace without considerably more research.

They are just destroying stuff without offering any alternative. If it was activism they would have found an alternative sponsor that they approved of.

Overprivileged, stupid people flaunting their luxury beliefs, oblivious to the harm their actions do to others. Like all the rich Just Stop Oil kids who flaunt their hypocritically jetsetting lives on social media but don't understand how their witless demands would affect the lives of the poor.

I read an interesting piece in The Times saying that Baille Gifford actually have much less than the average investment fund group in oil and have very little to do with armaments. I fear that virtue signalling and a general feel amongst the arts of self-righteousness is in danger of creating a wrong-headed culture.

I don't normally enjoy LS' books but SWSOSWG is excellent

I agree. They fucked it for us all. Pricks.

I work in custody and I hate these pricks. The ones I countered were walking cliches - posh, double-barrelled surnames, vegan, in uni doing art degrees with seemingly little life experience. They don't have a fucking clue.