What motivates such a senseless, stupid act?

I’ve long had the idea that the cultural heritage of any group of people, as an expression and celebration of their being, is a gift to all of us.

It’s possible that we sometimes might not understand its great value, but how foolish it would be to deny that value, and how criminal — a crime that we all suffer for — to do anything to damage or destroy it.

Yet such crimes occur.

Sometimes they are ideologically motivated.

Over the past few years, for example, the militant group Islamic State has destroyed ancient relics and monuments of the Mesopotamian, Islamic and Greco-Roman cultures in Iraq and Syria.

It apparently considered the ancient structures it found in Palmyra, Syria, and Nimrud, Iraq, an idolatrous blemish on terrain it claimed as part of its new “caliphate”. Structures were bulldozed or leveled by explosions, artworks defaced, and artifacts looted.

Sometimes the destruction of cultural heritage is carried out as statement of military might.

In 1860, invading British and French troops reached the Old Summer Palace in Beijing and after looting its treasures — many which were shipped off to Europe — they destroyed the structure.

Sometimes such destruction of cultural heritage is motivated by insanity.

In 1991, a man attacked Michelangelo’s statue David in Florence, Italy, and managed to break one of its toes before he was subdued. The man said the artist’s model had told him to destroy the 16th-century artwork.

Leonardo da Vinci’s 16thcentury Mona Lisa painting in Paris’ Louvre Museum has been a magnet for such attacks and ultimately had to be protected with bulletproof glass.

As evil as all of these incidents were, none of them seem so senselessly stupid, so lacking in reason, as a recent event.

During an evening Christmas party at the Franklin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in December, a group of guests wandered off unattended among the exhibits.

They made their way to treasures on loan from the People’s Republic of China. Most of the stray guests then returned, to the festivities, but one stayed behind.

A surveillance video shows a man approaching the 10 Terracotta Warriors on display and posing for a selfie with his arm around one.

He then clasps its outstretched hand and breaks off the 2,300-year-old statue’s thumb.

The vandalism went unnoticed for about two weeks, but when it was discovered, the museum turned to the video for clues. What they saw on the tape ultimately led police to a 24-year-old suspect who reportedly confessed. He retrieved the missing appendage from a desk drawer in his bedroom and gave it to the police, according to The New York Times.

According to CNN, when he and his friends returned from the museum that evening, he bragged about his vandalism and theft.

Huh? Contact the writer at lydon@chinadaily.com.cn