I'd parked my bike up by Cardiff Central Library yesterday afternoon and gone to the King's Cross to meet a mate. When I returned, my bike was lying on its side; the front wheel having been removed, the front brakes in bits and the chain off. Nothing was stolen but it seemed that much had been broken.
On closer inspection, most of the destruction was easily fixed. It didn't take me long to get the front wheel sorted and putting the chain back on was an easy but messy job. I cycled home without my front brakes as I couldn't figure out how to fix those there and then. I felt really angry and sad at this destruction. Why would anyone want to do this to my bike?
Destruction is such a negative force. There is nothing to inspire or marvel at; there is no effort required other than the blind grunt of lashing out. You don't need to train or study or practice; anyone can do it. Whereas creation is the exact opposite and is something that requires effort and control; it is something to wonder at and to prepare for and practice at; it is something worth doing.
The news today is filled with pictures of burned out buildings and vehicles in Tottenham in North London last night. It seems a riot was sparked after 300 people protested outside a police station following the fatal shooting by police of 29 year old Mark Duggan last Thursday. I have no criticism of legitmate protest (indeed, the right to protest should be protected) but does this rioting and looting move us closer to the truth of what happened or help the grieving family and friends? No. I suspect that what happened in Tottenham last night was a destructive vent manipulated by a minority that couldn't really care about Mark Duggan, his family or his friends.
I don't think that we in the UK are very good when it comes to valuing creative forces. Art in this country is something that is often sidelined and sometimes ridiculed. I'm not quite sure how we change that. I believe that the looting and destruction in Tottenham last night and the vandelism of my bike yesterday afternoon are both related to our poor appreciation of art. By appreciation of art I'm not talking about an appreciation of the finer things in life in a pompous bettering ourselves sort of way. No, I simply mean an understanding of the effort and care required to create something. How much more powerful would yesterday's protest have been had it ended in the creation of something rather than the destruction of so much? There is still time.
Oscar Wilde was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement of the late 19th Century. On a lecture tour of the US, he was asked why he thought American society was so violent, to which he replied, "because your wallpaper is so ugly". Many people think that he was being very frivolous and trivial; indeed, very Wildean. In fact, his response was a serious and considered remark to be taken at face value. As the erudite Stephen Fry explains in a podcast from 2008: Oscar Wilde believed that if you surround yourself and fill your life with uninspiring, cheap and ugly things then your outlook and values will be uninspiring, cheap and ugly.
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