November 13, 2013 6:01 AM

Somehow, I don't think this is quite what Saul Alinsky had in mind

MOSCOW — On Sunday the protest artist Petr Pavlensky sat naked on Red Square and drove a nail through his scrotum and into the pavement. The police, usually quick to suppress any protest so close to the Kremlin, seemed at a loss over what to do. The presidential guard, Vladimir Putin’s personal army, controls the area but was nowhere in sight. A policeman in a bulky gray uniform walked up to Pavlensky and muttered, “We are getting up now, Mister” and moved away. Another policeman later draped a white blanket over the artist: Some observers thought it made Pavlensky’s silhouette resemble Mahatma Gandhi’s. Pavlensky distributed a short statement explaining his gesture. Timed to coincide with Russian Police Day, “the action,” he wrote, “can be viewed as a metaphor for apathy, political indifference, and fatalism typical of contemporary Russian society.”

A friend once told me that you could illustrate the contrast between involvement and commitment by using a breakfast of bacon and eggs as an example. The chicken may have been involved, but the pig was committed. I’m not sure that this was Petr Pavlensky’s philosophy when he used Maxwell’s silver hammer to affix his scrotum to the pavement in Moscow’s Red Square, but if that doesn’t demonstrate commitment, I don’t know what would.

Ouch…and if you’re male, welcome to today’s cringe-worthy moment.

I’m not certain the message Pavlensky thought his action would send to the world was quite what was received. I can’t imagine that Vladimir Putin gives a tinker’s damn about a naked protestor making a personal statement in Red Square. As much as one might admire Pavlensky’s willingness to stand up…er, sit down…for his beliefs and his disillusionment, his method leaves something to be desired. Nailing his scrotum to the pavement? Well, let’s just say it’s not the method most males would choose to make their case. Just the thought of it makes me want to reflexively curl up into the fetal position.

Given the state of democracy in Russia these days, Pavlensky may have been (probably rightly) convinced that a more conventional protest would have been roundly ignored. Full credit for originality and gravitas, though. One doesn’t nail one’s scrotum to the pavement without being significantly committed to your message.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to look at a hammer and nail in quite the same way again.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on November 13, 2013 6:01 AM.

Conservative reality: Only sluts and whores use birth control was the previous entry in this blog.

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