I didn’t follow every nook and crany of her story, but I didn’t see her promoting anything that a rational objective observer should also conclude.
What I did see, were a big amount of butthurt middle aged men who couldn’t handle what a girl telling them the truth does to their own self image. And instead of using this as a chance to groe as a person they start to rationalize their behaviour in ways which are uncompatible with the reality.
citation needed. the fact that this girl has been launched into stardom practically overnight is a sign that she's not "in charge".
This wouldn't be extraordinary. Your claim however is. And you know the drill: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Especially when you use that claim in an ad hominem attack to silence someones arguments.
Why?
Disregard the subject matter for a moment, if you will, but if someone has been subtly indoctrinated enough (or a madman is fully convicted in his beliefs), are they truly their own?
Because this is what it always boils down to: figures like her act as a mirror and many people don't like what they see in it. And it is easier to attack the mirror than dealing with what it tells you.
I suspect most siding with her would stop once they actually need to carve into their own way of life. I've seen many environmentalist types care about the environment so long as it is not directly impacting theirs... It makes it easy to evangelize while being on the absolute upper crust of humanity.
If she was a 45 year old accountant trying to take a stand on climate change I don't think she would be trotted out like this.
Because she inspired many other kids her age to start speaking up and do something. I can clearly remember when I was 16 and started to realize how bad the grown ups were actually at implementing all these things they thought me I should value. Starts with democracy and goes to environmentalism.
On a symbolic level she represents the generations who will get the blunt of it. The generations that will have to battle all of that mess the generations before them created.
I don't really see, why her decision to use that publicity should be any kind of valid critizism really, unless it is meant to be an ad hominem attack to avoid talking about the topic.
I think it's pretty obvious what the message here is: the (older) politicians and business men are incompetent or corrupt, the powerless youngsters are showing themselves to be infinitely more responsible. It's a striking image.
I'm not shocked that someone from a younger generation is worried about the long term impacts of climate change and how it may change their future.
Climate activism is one of the more noble purposes for using children as mouthpieces, of course, it's not like she's a pawn of some nefarious shadow group, but for some of us it still leaves a bad taste. And being that she is a mouthpiece, it seems like a collective delusion that she's discussed like some kind of key actor.
If you spark something like that and act like the symbol of the betrayed next generation, media support is the best thing you can wish for.
So rather than portraying this as something that is beeing done to her, I'd argue that she is entirely on board with the whole thing and more reflected about it than we give her credit for.
Like I said, it is a collective delusion where you have to buy into every facet, including the messianic self-made image, or you hate little girls and the environment.
Her own words on this are far more interesting: https://www.facebook.com/gretathunbergsweden/posts/recently-...
¹:https://www.aftonbladet.se/svenskahjaltar/a/G1AL4q/greta-15-...
So what do you suggest? Bright spotlights and a hard chair? A smoking interviewer with a deep voice who makes her regret she even dared to start thinking about the whole thing?
For me Greta Thunberg is mostly a moral figure. Somebody who convincingly claims they have a stake in the message they carry. This is the reason why I am not that much interested in her – I don't really need any convincing on that topic.
And because she is a moral figure, everything starts to make a lot more sense when you see the whole Pro- and Anti-Greta followership through a moralistic lense. The former ones are the ones who needed her push to stand up or who feel they have to defend her and the latter ones feel their own moral self image threatened because there comes a child who tells them they are not as good as a person as they thought they were. And when somebody tells you that, attacking their character is _always_ easier than changing your view of the world and your place in it. It is quite predictable in it's entirety, but that makes it fascinating in my eyes.
The official narrative is that she is a precocious lone wolf climate crusader social prodigy, which is useful to the entrenched activists handling her because it saves them all the work of scientifically refuting climate deniers; now they can be simply painted as bullies. But because she is a moral icon, even pointing out the institutional backing behind her viral status is a form of heresy.
She apparently got her first contact with climate groups through a writing contest where she wrote on climate change/climate politics, so her motivation was prexisting. Whether they use her or she used them (or it was some kind of symbiosis or a cold blooded deal) would be hard to quantify objectively, especially if she has similar political goals than her, so I'd be careful with assumptions, especially if they make you sound like you go for an ad hominem attack. I remember myself als a 16 year old, I was definitly not unpolitical, quite the opposite and manipulating me into supporting something I didn't like would have been quite hard back then, maybe harder even harder than now.
Of course viewing her as a lone wolf is completely nuts and I am quite sure neither herself nor the people who started the school protests in her wake would subscribe to that notion (at least I heard it beeing discussed by some Fridays for Future kids in Germany). This is obviously a media narrative by journalists who got carried away. On the other hand claiming that she is "pushed around by faceless actors" is also a bit bland. Firstly if these actors weren't faceless but well known they wouldn't have to rely on somebody else to push messages out, secondly I'd argue that this symbolic action is far better than the alternative (something like flying drones over Heathrow Airport to get media attention), thirdly if "faceless actors" in the background worry you, there are much much better targets to attack (e.g. the UK prime minister, industry lobbyists in the US, etc.)
The topics she is speaking onare certainly not the ones that have a incredibly powerful lobby behind it (in terms on lobbying money spent), so if we speak of "creepy faceless actors" behind her, you can assume the actors on the opposite site are tenfold as creepy and faceless, certainly profit from discrediting the person and there is historical evidence that they exist, profit from it and use their influence.
All that aside. The future generations have a valid moral argument. We have known about global warming since half a century and did nothing – the opposite, in the wake of neoliberalism that followed the fall of the soviet union we made everything even more about profits than before. And now we are like that procrastinating kid that pushed homework away and tries to do it while the steps of the approaching teacher echo through the hallway: the only way to get out of this seems to break our own hand to be sent of to the nurse. From an outside perspective this is totally irrational behaviour unless there is proof that the reality looks different altogether. But there is no such proof, which is why the persons are attacked instead of their ideas. Not liking somebodies moral standpoint is a very weak defense when they stand for the wellbeing of many future generations and the survival of mankind.
Edit: that was just a stupid thing to say. Sorry, you didn't claim she is dishonest.
Is this satire or am I missing something here?
Greta is a smart kid, no denying that. However, I still believe she parrots a lot of information that she may not understand fully and is being used as a lobbying-tool to enact legislation. That, I have a problem with!