The False Hope of Greta Thunberg
What COVID-19 Teaches Us about the Prospects of the Species
She was all around the news in 2019, her voice echoed in the corners of a world that largely sympathizes with her cause — which should be the cause of us all — yet turns a blind eye to her calls, going about its business-as-usual way of life with its mundane hustle and bustle. In a way, she was an incarnation of the hopes of the majority of us who care about the decent survival of humanity, let alone the minority of us who care about the common good as well. We followed with a sense of passive hope and amusement as her persistent softness penetrated the thin skin of the most powerful of men in the world. And then COVID-19 came.
The rise of the pandemic coincided with the end of the hottest decade on record, but it’s definitely not the end of the actions which caused it to be so. Ironically, though, COVID-19 was also the experiment that the young and hopeful Greta dreamed about but could and would never achieve on her own, or, more precisely, on the collective efforts of the whole Green movement which she now, more or less, symbolizes. For a couple of months or so, businesses were shut, cars were parked, planes were grounded, and even animals took the empty streets over on a planet which was finally given a chance to breathe as we, humans, were given a chance to reflect on our sins of modernity and its illusion of progress. It was no more mere voluntary Fridays off for the future by kids and teenagers but an involuntary lockdown that forced even the most staunch of capitalists to slow down their engines for weeks. And then the lockdowns were unlocked.
It’s difficult to assess the real, lasting impact those initial lockdowns had on the environment, however minimal it is, but it’s fairly safe to say that it’s much more than all the collective Earth Hours calling for synchronized turning off of lights, and all the initiatives by WWF or Greenpeace calling for saving the flora and fauna, among other microscopic efforts which make us satisfied yet never satisfies the purpose. To change the collective mindset of a humanity so lost in hubris and folly through persuasion have proven futile over and over again. The governments, on the other hand, didn’t exercise such patience when they found out that their, and their allies’ interests were at stake; they needed a quicker effect. Their actions had, as a byproduct, an unprecedented, albeit temporary positive impact on the environment. The reason for such an impact is simple: we, the individuals, had zero choice, so consolidated effort this time was indeed possible.
Perhaps freedom is our undoing. Atheists often ask why God would allow harm, to which theists usually answer that it is to allow us to have the Freedom of Choice. To borrow a metaphor from this debate, one can view freedom as the Original Sin. We are free to choose to do harm, and harm is what we do, whether consciously or subconsciously, whether actively or passively, it doesn’t matter. We can do harm through inflicting pain or limiting freedom. We can even harm ourselves among others thinking we are doing something good, and that’s what we also almost always do.
A casual look at technology, for instance, shows us how great of an achievement we humans have done since the Industrial Revolution, improving the lifestyle of many human beings, increasing the overall security of many individuals, and raising our average age through better food management, improved health care, as well as seniors support. Our communities kept enlarging until the world has become a single community, in a way. All good, but what if this is exactly our most deadly of sins? A more honest look at technology would show us that our path of progression through modernity is a suicidal bubble.
We are mere immortals and we don’t like it, so we try as much as we can to live longer and have a larger impact. In the process, our home is getting more limited through overpopulation, and time surely feels tighter through the subsequent distraction of overcrowdedness. Consequently, we resort to lethal remedies like individualism and specialization. The first, being in the realm of people, makes us hate the “other” more, creating conflicts and injustice all around; the latter, being in the realm of things, makes us more ignorant and dependent on the system. Both create the same socio-political dynamics of isolated dependency between the individual and the society that were present since the dawn of centralized civilization with the rise of farming, yet are now on a global scale. The only difference is that now there is no where to expand, or even escape for that matter.
Despite our spatial transformation from the local to the global, we, be it as individuals or nations, haven’t transformed our worldview in accordance. Nevertheless, the most blind of us — or the most determined, depending on how you look at it — thinks our solace would be in yet more technology, including fantasies like space colonization. Audacious goals, of course; ones which would make us cut more trees and burn more resources, not to mention fuel more injustice around the world. As a species, in a way, we have forgotten about our immortality, forgetting about our responsibilities along the process of advancing towards fulfilling our own prophecy of predestined eternal expansion. In our own dreamy eyes, humanity has become a god. To save no irony, we have acquired this view in our most fragile moment.
Thinking about it thoroughly, however, I’d rather say we are not completely incorrect. Indeed, humanity is becoming more potent and knowledgeable than it had ever been. Yet we are not becoming the omniscient and omnipotent kind of god, but more like Atlas who was condemned to oblivion through being consumed carrying the burden of the universe upon his shoulders — to borrow a metaphor from yet another mythology. The young age of our modernity experiment aggravates the condition even more through the insolence of its adolescence, and ours as modern human beings. Our cancerous progress begets wider centralization through accumulation of wealth, which, in turn, diminishes any possibility of collective consensus or even local management of the limited resources, hence the lack of sustainability.
As a theoretical exercise in alternative history, it’s very difficult to imagine humanity progressing in any other way apart from that of an Industrial Revolution, unless there was a physical hindrance perhaps that would save us from ourselves. And now that the damage is already almost done, it’s even harder to imagine the gears of capitalism ceasing to roll as long as our blood is ready to supply for their demand of lubrication. It will cease only when it ends, that is when we, as a species, cease to forget that we are immortals who have the freedom to choose a different path. Too bad it will be too late for us to enjoy such freedom.
Back to Greta, while she and her likes made a comeback after those lockdowns calling for more Friday for Futures, more recycling efforts, and less plastic bags usage, the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is already taking place effecting a new temporary halt of our beloved addictive modern lifestyle. Behind the pandemic, however, hides a greater pandemic of conformance to the ideals of a corrupt economic system. Capitalists, who roll the gears, meanwhile, are accelerating us towards impact through spreading denialism or false promises. Some are even theorizing that such an impact is necessary for being able to find the different path, citing “crisis motivation” as the usual source of human ingenuity through the sacred texts of market dynamics and the “invisible hand” of collective self-interest — this time borrowing the metaphor of our own modern mythology.
What is left to us, the individuals, as we lubricate the gears is to bury our heads into our trivial specialties and not even brace for impact, as it will come only when our blood dries out, so why should we care?! Of course, meanwhile, we are free to choose not to use plastic bags and we can even cheer for Friday for Futures, as long as we keep those gears turning.
Freedom is a choice after all. Only when it’s allowed.
