The weird cult of Greta Thunberg: she’s not the Green Messiah

Apr 25, 2019 by

by Martin Sewell, Archbishop Cranmer:

The activities of those following the latest fashion in political activism have been disrupting the nation’s capital, and yesterday its unlikely spokesperson and poster child, Greta Thunberg, went to Westminster to urge MPs to “do more” about climate change. I speak of fashion deliberately: popular protest is in part an expression of a culture of group identification which Saul Alinski’s Rules for Radicals pressed upon its supporters.

“A good tactic is one your people enjoy”, he advised, and “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.” So we drift from one pressing crisis to the next, the better to demonstrate that people like us truly care. Greta Thunberg duly arrives to authenticate the sense of self satisfaction of those exhibiting their collective virtue, usually in a nation’s capital. It is a moveable feast. Over the years it has had many incarnations: CND, ‘Save the Whales’, ‘Stop the War’, ‘No Cruise Missiles’, Anti-Racism’, ‘Anti-Hunting’ have all come and gone without obvious success. Its regular adherents like to quote, but rarely feel inclined to take the supposed advice of Albert Einstein, that the definition of madness is repeating the same thing and expecting different results.

Still, such adherents will enjoy a sense of being ‘better informed’ and ‘more caring’. It allows one to proclaim “I was there” to one’s friends, and maybe appear on television with a particularly witty home-made sign. It makes a change from the printed versions generously handed out by the Socialist Workers Party who are known for such selfless public service.

We all know the television clichés. Part of the kabuki of public protest is the charismatic figure whose public trajectory rises and falls. Once there was the ‘Red Dean’ of St Paul’s, Canon John Collins, then Monsignor Bruce Kent, then Swampy – all had their 15 minutes of fame in these contexts and now, with our latest obsession of ‘Climate Change’, we welcome Swedish ingenue Greta Thunberg, who encapsulates the angst of the woke to reassure them that “the world is listening”.

Read here

Read also: Self-Harm Versus the Greater Good: Greta Thunberg and Child Activism by Paulina Neuding, Quillette

WATCH: WATCH: Ici Londres – Socialism is Harry Potter for adults, Dan Hannan

 

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