Since last summer a lot of flags appeared all over the UK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours https://manchestermill.co.uk/the-men-who-raised-the-flags/

The ambiguity is part of the charm. Something that reveals more about the beholders than the artist makes for stimulating conversation and discovery.

Even the new positioning of the art on a plinth in some open space is enigmatic. If it were a critique of the powers that be, why would officialdom collaborate in propping it up?

Interpretations, in my art?

Seriously, this is part of the fun of art. Neither of you are wrong for reading different messages into it.

Exactly.

Communists are blinded by the flag with the hammer and sickle.

Teachers and doctors are blinded by trans ideology and its flag.

Examples abound, but wanna transgressor blanksy knows who butters his bread.

Flags overwhelmingly represent nations, groups considering themselves nations, that were nations or have some kind of individual governmental status.

In the UK there's been a recent spate of nationalist flag flying. Given the artist and location, "blinded by nationalism" is the most likely intended meaning.

> Is it though? This can mean anything. Is waving a Palestinian flag the same as waving an Israeli flag? Where do we draw the line between harmful and productive nationalism? Who exactly is blinded by nationalism?

Clearly it depends on your actual object-level position on the Israel/Palestine conflict. Or in general, what specific nationalisms you mean when you talk about being "blinded by nationalism".

And that's the main reason why I think this is a mediocre piece of art. Very few people actually are genuinely anti-nationalist for all possible human groups that have some sense of themselves as a nation. All anti-nationalist rhetoric is implicitly aimed at a specific nationalism that someone has a problem with - and also everyone knows this. So everyone wants to use the blank slate of bansky's featureless flag as a canvas upon which to paint a nationalism they don't like in order to discredit it. And I personally think that's boring. Maybe engendering that reaction was itself part of Bansky's artistic vision, but I still don't think that makes for good art.

> Is waving a Palestinian flag the same as waving an Israeli flag?

Waving a flag is not a problem in itself. You can be proud of being part of whatever group you like and not hurt anyone. The problem is when the flag becomes the prism through which you see the world. Or, as the statue puts it, when you’re blinded by it.

Both Israel and Palestine are blinded by ideology. It is a very common failure mode for people.

waving any flag and thinking its us or them is equally blinding. the world is not vacuum and to coexist we need to put flags behind and work together.