In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation.
- Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
A video of Greta Thunberg speaking to the UN this week blew up for a few days on my Twitter and Facebook feeds. When I first started seeing them, I thought that it was because people were judging her as angry, immature, and too emotional. What I saw instead is that a lot of the people on the left that I follow were proud of her for getting angry. One climate activist that I respect tweeted that "Rage-filled Greta is actually my favorite Greta."
I'm a bit perplexed by this. Her anger and rage are fine, but that it takes her getting so emotional to make such ripples is sad to me.
I'm not trying to be Vulcan about it and saying that we shouldn't get emotional. I'm saying that we're simply not using our imagination enough if it takes a kid to get angry for us to listen. Her getting angry doesn't make her any more right (or wrong).
Like the burning CVS, I'd like to think that anger is okay if it gets people to listen, but I don't think that it gets us to listen any more than we were already. It gets us turned on to the spectacle of it, but likely no more committed to a future that works for all.
I'm amazed at her thinking and articulation and maturity. And I think it's fine that she got angry. This isn't an indictment of her self-expression. It's an indictment of the culture that turned her message and self-expression into a spectacle. I'm feeling sad that anger seems so meaningful to express, when devastated homes, hungry bellies, the 6th mass extinction, and mass migration aren't enough to call us to action.
Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right!
- Ricky Gervais
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