Why We’ve Been Getting Greta Thunberg Wrong From The Start
A More Personal Than Usual Reaction To The Kind of ‘Activism’ She Represents
A little personal history before I get to the point.
As I’ve mentioned in related articles in my teenage years I was diagnosed as being on the spectrum. There have been many symptoms that I’ve had to battle with over the years, including both obsessions and irrational anger.
As I’ve mentioned in another article, much of that anger was directed at public transportation. There are many legitimate reasons to be frustrated with the New York Public Transportation system (I was reminded of that recently) but my frustration for much of my twenties was with its scheduling. I couldn’t accept that buses never arrived on or even close to the time on their schedules, I couldn’t tolerate that the subways never seemed to correspond with how the trains I needed to take, and I regarded any deviation from that schedule as a capital offense. Consequently I spent much of my twenties taking out my rage against many employees of that system, including bus drivers, train conductors and other assorted fair conductors. I have never been the quietest person and I’m tall and gangly, so that can easily become frightening to outsiders and even some of my closest friends at times. All of this terrified my parents who thought one day I would say or do something in front of the wrong person and end up being arrested.
It took a long time — longer than I would like to admit — and a lot of therapy for me to realize the error of my ways. I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t irk or frustrate me when these problems occur — and if you are a resident of New York, you know that’s the norm — but I’ve gotten to the point that I accept them as part of how life works.
Now anyone who is under twenty knows that, of course, my parents took the wrong approach. What they should have done is not only acknowledge that my demands were completely righteous but accommodate them in every way possible. I should have not made effort to either find a job or better myself. Rather I should have spent my entire life being taken to visit every single MTA employee and institution in the state of New York to vent my spleen on them. My parents should have sacrificed their livelihood and all of their own lives to drive me around to everyone of these meetings, tell me I was absolutely right at every turn to make this my life’s work and personally promote my efforts not only in the New York media, but around the entire world. I should have been allowed to attend corporate and political meetings in which I was allowed for extended periods to berate and scream at adults for making my life miserable. And of course everyone should have applauded me and hailed me as the voice of a generation.
If you’ve read this past paragraph you will, quite rightfully, think that this attitude is that of a lunatic and an entitled prick. What kind of spoiled brat would think that his opinion about this should be celebrated and saluted by everyone worldwide? I would then ask you to really tell me what the difference is between the scenario I am proposing and what Greta Thunberg has been doing for the last several years.
Now I have been told that Thunberg is on the spectrum with a more advanced case than myself. But even if that were true, let’s put that aside. Let’s also set aside some of the other stories we’ve heard about her the past year about things in the last year that might have, shall we say, tarnished her halo. I’m telling you that not only is everything Thunberg been doing for the last several years just a variation of what I’ve described, at every level her so called activism is based on so many false pretenses. Let’s deal with what Thunberg has done according to her own Wikipedia page.
Apparently her ‘climate activism began when she persuaded her parents to adopt lifestyle choices that reduced her family’s carbon footprint’. Based on what I’ve seen Thunberg do, I think persuade is a euphemism for ‘screamed at her parents until they decided to listen to her’
She then decided to skip school until after the National election in Sweden in an attempt to influence the outcome. She persuaded other children to skip school to film her. I don’t know what the educational school system in Sweden is like compared to America, but I also know that teenagers don’t need a reason to want to not go to school. She has since gone back to school, so I guess global warming has been solved? Again I’ll get back to that.
I understand she has been leading student climate strike protests Fridays around the world. I’ll get back to that in a minute. She has since convinced her parent to not fly and ‘sail on a carbon free yacht from Plymouth’.
Now I imagine much of us would like to have a carbon free footprint. Not many of us have the resources to afford a yacht nor the time to sail around the world. This would seem to be the definition of white privilege and I guarantee you if either Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or their children took the same approach, millions of leftists would be calling them hypocrites and not believing in their fealty to the cause.
As we all know the only way to get climate action to happen is very complicated and would involve the coordination of basically the entire world. It hasn’t happened since we recognized it as a crisis. All of the best minds of our generation have bene trying to find a way to thread the needle for so long. I recognize the ability of youth to protest but it has to lead to something. The idea of having a teenager being able to address the UN Climate Action Summit is noble, but realistically what did anyone think would happen? The idea that a single person could make a speech that would galvanize millions into doing anything would be too far-fetched for Frank Capra and Disney films would not consider it plausible.
And as all we know Thunberg’s style of speaking is anything but inspirational. She basically scolded the world leaders and shouted: “how dare you?” to their indifference. She was essentially hailed by millions and named the Person of the Year by Time and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for essentially giving the climate change equivalent of what amounts to: “You ruined my life!” when your parents won’t let you go to a party.
Her article makes it clear that her mother had to give up her professional career as an opera singer. When Greta was asked in September of 2021, whether she felt guilty about ended her mother’s career, according to the interviewer she was ‘surprised by the question.” In her own words: “It was her choice. I didn’t make her do anything.” I have no doubt Thunberg might truly believe this.
Now I have suffered from depression and I have had my struggles. I have often struggled with my parents inability to understand my condition. I know that they have made sacrifices for my happiness that must be painful. But the older I get I realize that I appreciate the differences of what they did. I asked them to do what they could to make my life easier. I bitched and moaned a lot — and it must have been hard for them.
But I would never once have demanded of my parents to make the kind of sacrifices that Thunberg has done. And that is because they were never shy about telling me when I was wrong and asking too much. I won’t pretend there weren’t many occasions I didn’t resent them, but I came to realize and even appreciate that they were saying no because they loved me. There’s a standard that the hardest word for a parent to say is ‘no’ and it can be just as hard for their child to hear it. I don’t know what Thunberg’s personal story is but based just on the public persona, it seems clear that her parents never considered saying that word, no matter how much she might have needed to hear it.
It is just as important for parent to do a delicate chance of guiding their children’s path but allow them to make their own choices. This is difficult for any parent and is I can say from my own experience can be excruciating for those who have children with development disabilities. I know far too many painful stories from the experience of myself and my friends and acquaintances all of whom have similar issues to mine.
There is a balance that parents must take between accommodation and indulgence. What I think the difference between the two is a matter of degree, of doing some things to make the child’s life easier and indulging every single whim regardless whether it is in their best interest. It seems to have become the standard recently — not just for children with disabilities but an entire generation of children — that parenting seems to be entirely about indulgence.
The most recent generation of children seems to have been told by their parents that everything they do is perfect and that they are incapable of failing. Get a poor grade on a test or in a course? Bully the school into changing the grade. The child isn’t making friends with their peers in their grades? Force play dates so the children have to become friends. A child’s team loses a competition? Make sure everyone gets a trophy just for participating. It used to be said that defeat builds character and success was built on the back of failures. The 21st century seems to have raised a bunch of children who have been taught that their failures are just a different standard of success and that they apparently have been undefeated. It’s one thing for a parent to tell their child that in their eyes they can never fail; it’s another to make sure that they will never fail in anyone’s eyes, even if they do.
Which brings me to the definition of Thunberg as an activist which only works by the definition of what so many people now consider activism. For centuries activism in the world was a means to end. Activists such as Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Mandela spent years of their life demonstrating and leading but that activism was built on the principle of leading to political or legislative change in the nations they lived in. They won the Nobel Peace Prize because their activism was just the means to a political end and they achieved both. I realize so many winners of the Nobel Peace Prize throughout its history have diminished whatever meaning it might have but I would think that should have to do more to be nominated for it then simply encouraging a bunch of teenagers around the world to skip school and essentially call a bunch of the greatest world leaders assembled monsters and idiots. Yet that is what apparently so many seemingly intelligent people seem to believe merits it. A friend of mine once said that he’s thrown his share of public tantrums and no one ever put him on the cover of Time for it and looking at her entire ‘record as an activist’, I couldn’t put it better myself.
I’m sure I will be sent a lot of angry screeds telling me some variation of ‘How dare you” or “Greta Thunberg’s a hero”. I will respond with the paraphrase of the Chris Rock line: “Aquaman’s a hero! He can talk to the fishes! What has Greta ever done?” There’s no evidence that Thunberg has done anything to change the conversation on climate change one iota, not positively. If those same activists who keep telling us that we are coming close to an existential crisis for the planet are telling the truth, then apparently Thunberg’s public demonstrations have not done anything to stop her future from being stolen. They’ve done a lot to make Thunberg world famous and an ad hoc leader in the climate activist community and that honestly says far more about what this generation considers activism. Thunberg might have lowered her family’s carbon footprint but apparently it came with her social media footprint exploding. And as we all know that’s all that’s what counts as progress among this entire generation. It’s not about changing the world or saving the world, but about how many likes you can get on the internet. And the fact that an entire generation truly believes that this is what is considered the kind of thing that counts as changing the world is more of an existential threat to our society than climate change will ever be. It certainly terrifies me more.
But this is to be expected when this generation has met the current activist movement. There has always been in every major movement, from abolition and woman’s suffrage to organized labors and civil rights, a fringe movement that will never accept anything other than total victory. All of the great successes in these movements, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, were achieved when the pragmatists realized that they would have to compromise in order to achieve a greater good. In other words they knew that it was better to make accommodations to achieve most of their goals then to indulge the fringe element and risk getting nothing. Then in the 1960s, both the Black Power movement and the anti-war movement either drove out or shouted down all the pragmatists in their movements and began what can only be described as performative activism where the only goal was to express outrage rather than use it to win any major battle. I don’t argue the outrage was warranted — the abuses by the government in the 1960s and 1970s were horrendous — but none of the movements during that period were organized towards achieving anything. Raising awareness used to be a means to an end in activism; now it was the ends. And for half a century that seems to be the sole goal of every single activist movement on the left. One doesn’t deny their fears and grievances aren’t merited but beyond expressing outrage at the system, all of these movements are largely performative rather than designed towards any goals. They indulge the participants and have no room for accommodation of anyone besides themselves.
The idea that so many people consider Greta Thunberg an ‘environmental activist’ is terrifying but hardly shocking considering how this entire generation seems to have defined ‘activism’. It’s not about changing the world, winning over hearts and minds, or even achieving anything. It’s about shouting at the top of your lungs, regardless whether people listen or even take you seriously, increasing your social media presence and inspiring a generation to do the same. Why should we be shocked that as Thunberg has reached an adult, she has increasingly defied lawful orders to disperse, confrontations with police and being arrested? It’s to be expected by an entire generation of activists who believe confrontation with authority is the point of activism, even if does nothing to further the goals of your movement. Indeed most so called activism has become against things rather than for anything and about deciding all authority deserves no respect even if they’re the only people who can change things. You’d think that her parents, if they care about her as much as mine do, would have urged her not to do what she did because they cared for her well-being and what might happen to her. But apparently they’re fine with it.
And what sickens me more than anything is that even though Thunberg has achieved absolutely nothing to further the goals of the environmental cause, a significant portion of the world has decided to say she is basically a hero and someone to aspire to. They interview her, they give her awards, they call her one of the most influential people in publications. I’ve seen some families of people on the spectrum do things to help their child succeed; almost the entire world has indulged every whim of Thunberg’s and she hasn’t even succeeded at her goals. Her parents should be celebrated in a way; they’ve essentially bought a social movement for their daughter and the entire media has basically been willing to play along. This would be example of the worst kind of helicopter parenting for any other child, but because Thunberg has made friends with the right people, she’ll be an idol for the rest of her life.
Personally though, as someone who has spent his entire life struggling to just get by with his disorder, who has had to learn harder lessons throughout his life as to what it take for the average person on the spectrum to get by, much less succeed, for someone who understands that our society only works if you meet it halfway and can’t comprehend why so many people believe they are entitled to be indulged, for someone who is much closer to people who have greater struggles than Thunberg and nowhere near the resources that her parents do, I want to be very clear. Speaking not just for myself, but for all the people I know and the countless others who struggle with this disorder, Thunberg not only doesn’t represent us, she is the worst example of what not to do when you have these problems. So to not only to her, but her parents, her activist colleagues and everybody who genuinely believes she is a hero and someone to be celebrated, I can only use her most famous quote: “How dare you?”