Utterly appalling. Seriously. So sad and pathetic that there are human beings out there with dirtiness on their minds and power to impose their interpretation of reality in something universal as art. Seriously, my blood boiled after reading that.
After ISIS took over parts of Iraq, they did what many have done before them through the millennia of destroying art and beauty because they disagreed.
A modern take is the climate activists destroying art because they fear the end of the world.
Fear manifests in interesting ways.
ISIS on the other had specifically wants the art destroyed because their particular brand of brainworms is opposed to anything that isn't worm-shaped. The goal wasn't to shock people, it was to cause deliberate damage to human culture.
It was easier to terrify people into surrendering their mind than to defeat them physically (and have them surrender their SUV in the art example).
ISIS wanted to recreate the Caliphate, and shocking, violent videos were one of the most effective methods of recruiting young, belligerent, impressionable males. Martyrdom, beheadings, and violent Jihad were things long before ISIS, and they simply put on the mantle.
to put it another way, you only saw the violent propaganda, since it was in the interest of the US Gov, Israel, Turkey, et al, to make sure the world saw how brutal they were. You didn't watch the hundreds of hours of non-violent propaganda or theology, such as the recruiting videos aimed at young Islamic women.
It’s all power games. Trying to pretend your morals are correct is hypocritical.
Takes that destroying art is worse than defacing some unremarkable plexiglass?
I mean... yeah, it is.
Also, the West interferes with the rest of the world quite enough - I'd suggest we try to stop exploiting the rest of the world before we 'save them from their backwards religions' or whatever.