I admire Greta Thunberg.
At age 16, she has changed the world more than I, surely, ever will.
Today, she has been invited to speak to France’s national assembly, to school and instill fear into our self-satisfied greying elites.
Greta Thunberg is a hero, how can one deny it? She is full of courage. At only 16, she knows what is best for the world, and she claims it loud and clear. She started with her family, whom she convinced to become vegan and to stop taking airplanes. Now she’s coming for us, the Gaulish “réfractaires” starting with our elite.
Greta Thunberg is a hero, but she’s not the only one. In fact, many people have become heroes in recent years. They usually are progressives, on the lookout for a cause to defend, and when they’ve found it, they just run with it, shattering walls and glass ceilings in their glorious paths.
I can never be a hero. Heroes, these days, are people with convictions. Their entire focus is on conveying a message, an ideal, and fighting to impose it on society, always for the better of course.
I don’t have such convictions. Woe is me, wallowing in my own mediocrity and lack of inspiration. I spend my time doubting, hesitating, second-guessing myself, trying to balance my opinions with an imaginary devil’s advocate, exploring the counterargument to what I instinctively believe in. When I see today’s heroes, I realize that doing so is nothing but cowardice. In a media landscape that needs quick fixes and instant gratification, stopping to think is just seen as flip flopping.
I doubt that Ms. Thunberg has pondered long on the economic, cultural, and societal ramifications of stopping air travel altogether, or of the entire population becoming vegan. That is not her concern. And that’s OK for a 16-year-old. After all, why burden yourself with a search for balanced solutions, when all that people are searching for on Facebook or Instagram is a prepackaged, ideologically sound message to repost and humble brag in front of their friends.
So I should get with the times, get used to the idea that we prefer to value instant heroes over more balanced, informed opinions. The national assembly could have just as well welcomed a panel of climate scientists. Instead they chose the instant hero of the day.
An instant hero doesn’t have a scientific background, doesn’t even need arguments, they double down on their own opinions, and stick to their guns.
Greta Thunberg just happens to be in the spotlight today, and that is why I picked her, but such heroes are sprouting every day, giving new hope to our otherwise apparently doomed societies. They are self-made demi-gods hailing from either end of the political spectrum, ascending to the top of social media’s Mount Olympus, one ‘like’ at a time.
How I envy them. Not only do they have so much clout, that, with a good social media campaign and a little sponsorship (whether corporate or crowdfunded), their entire financial future can be secured in just a few months, but also, and above all, they can feel the bliss of having such a good cause on their side that reason and proof of soundness no longer constitute a burden. Their cause soon is no longer an object of debate, and instead quickly becomes an axiom, a fundamental pillar in the canon that is the quest of good versus evil.
No, I could never be a hero. I might have some good in me, but something else counterbalances it. It must be evil, it must be the proverbial dark side that Star Wars saga was built around. That is why I admire those instant heroes, those 16-year-old jedi who are wiser than people twice or even thrice their age, and have no problem telling it to their audience’s faces. I must be a masochist, because I feel like I need to show proof of work in order to earn the right to speak before I open my mouth.
This fundamental flaw seals my fate as a mere mortal, for true heroes these days do not wait for permission to speak. They grab it. They take one side of the story and run with it. And the media love it. And if the media love it, politicians love it.
That is why I admire our new modern heroes with such fervor. Maintaining that display of righteousness requires an incredible amount of courage: the courage to be intellectually lazy.
The only downside is, it is not compatible with the courage for truth.