There has been an attempt to turn an actual conversation, which at one point was modern, into some post-modern hype. The children protesting are not posing some satirical Modest Proposal (Jonathan Swift, 1729) esque archetype. They are disturbed.
The ongoing public conversation about the environment is grounded in the ancient dichotomy of man versus nature (Harpers Forum, 1990)
This quote rings true today. Policymakers, social advocates, and researchers are bound to an endless loop of rhetoric built around supposed here say. The trendiest of gossip is thus the oldest of gossip. You can almost hear the aristocrat women of the poor houses roll their eyes and whisper, can’t you?
“The children really shouldn’t be living in these conditions” is the logic that persuaded the acceptance of social welfare. Those with money, power, and knowledge, are doing their best to meet the needs of our most vulnerable. Privilege doesn’t come without sympathy, but it inevitably comes far removed from answers or solutions.
Were so perplexed by the modern state that even radical ideology is absent. How long do humans stay entranced by our inability to solve the unsolvable? It seems irrational to believe that funneling more money into the system will bring about any inventive solutions to the “environmental crisis,” especially when we continue to seek out solutions through what sits here in our laps and in our pockets. We, leaving the fate of society in the hands of our computers and not turning to each other to decode this iceberg, are collectively losing.
Do we make it out before Freud’s ice burg (1915) melts away? Can we see into and out through collectively self-actualizing?