Honors College Art & Science of Emotions Fall 2017 (12:00 p.m.) The Burn Journal | Página 4

Rage, the Flower Thrower
Author: Elizabeth Deneen
We live in a society that is saturated with violent acts. A society where it is not uncommon to
hear of a new suicide bombing, mass-shooting, or missile strike on a daily basis. While some of these
forms of violence may be new, humans have been engaging in aggressive acts with one another since
perhaps the beginning of their existence. Does this justify violent acts in the present day as just part of
the human experience or is it possible to potentially live in a world without violence? The piece “Rage,
the Flower Thrower” by Banksy makes the statement that while our natural instinct might be to turn to
violence we should instead turn to peace.
“Rage, the Flower Thrower” was created in 2003 by Banksy, a well-known street artist known
for his political and satirical pieces. This particular piece is a graffiti mural done on the wall of a garage
in Jerusalem, Israel. The location of this piece is very important to decoding the meaning of this mural.
Jerusalem is a place that is well known for the violence between the Israelis and Palestinians. There are
many reasons why these two groups disagree, one of the reasons being that both groups wants control
over Jerusalem, which is considered to be a holy and religious area to both peoples. This has led to a lot
of violence in the area, in May 2003 alone, 5 bombings occurred in Israel between the two groups
(Israeli–Palestinian conflict 2003). The violence in Israel has been going on for decades, most of the
population has grown up knowing only violence between the two groups. There are soldiers fighting a
war that started way before they were born,which is why this population is so likely to show our natural
instinct for conflict and violence. Banksy shows this in his art, which depicts a young male about to
throw a bouquet of flowers, yet the subject is posed in such a way that one would think he was about to
throw something else, a grenade. If Banksy is making a statement about peace then why would he
choose to put that imagery of a grenade in our mind? The point is being made that it is natural for us to
jump to violence, both in the images our minds conjure and the actions we take.
The natural instinct for humans to act violently is called reactive aggression and is exhibited in
“all mammalian species”. Reactive aggression is a response, in our case violence, that is “triggered by a
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