Greta Thunberg has caused me to shatter the laws of mathematics, because my infinite store of compassion just ran out. The 23-year-old Swedish activist decided to make her way to France to join her fellow youthful miscreants, sorry revolutionaries, who have been forced not to attend school due to a shortage of textbooks. Denis, Paris, in a kaffiyeh (naturally) to talk about standing up against adults everywhere.
The youth of "France and all over the world are being neglected, and it is about time that they’re standing up and demanding what is rightfully theirs," she said. "Demanding the bare minimum. And from all over the world, we are following students in France, who are leading by example and showing what we should all be doing." By that, I assume she means skipping school and firing a handmade flame thrower in the face of your teacher, as we saw in one notorious incident last week.
There may well be serious problems facing France’s education system, but an unscheduled fortnight of vacation is a lot more appealing than boring geography and chemistry classes. And that is Thunberg’s biggest credibility problem: her whole life—her whole identity—is that of someone who plays truant for a living. It’s a strange and slightly uncomfortable situation to criticize a young woman for her beliefs, however vapid they might be.
But, then again, that’s equality for you. If she wants to be the world’s greatest grievance tourist, then she has to accept she's probably going to irritate the hell out of everyone. Sure, she’s neurodiverse, but the same principle applies.
She should be judged by the content of her character and actions, not by her lack of attention span. The main reason high-school student protests drag on and on is because they’re fun. You get to hang out with your friends and cosplay rebellion.
The French are the New York Yankees of student uprisings, so, obviously, Thunberg is going to get involved—she’s turned up to support similar causes in London and Berlin. She said the French police had exhibited "extreme violence" against the protests, which feels like an irresponsible claim given the footage of the students in full flow on the streets. But her rocking up in France is actually bad news for the protests.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
