The same week that Boris and Brexit won a smashing victory (the adjective is not chosen thoughtlessly), Greta was named Time's Person of the Year. In my mind, this encapsulates the tension (conflict?) between populism and technocracy. I'm a technocrat, aka a dinosaur.
One more thought about this: I think populism is ascendant in democracies in recent years because it speaks poetry to the voters. Technocrats' preferred genre is prose.
I'm sure it absolutely drove Trump nuts that Greta got Time mag person of the year. Various newspaper columnists are also having a cow over it because supposedly it is a sentimental choice without gravitas. They need to chill out, it's just a magazine cover.
ReplyDeleteGreta is the future, just as Francis is the future because climate change will come to dominate everyone's future. Boris and Donald are the past, of the greatness of the British and American empires which are both declining very fast since Brexit and the election of Trump.
ReplyDeleteGreta is the future, Trump is the past. That nails it.
DeleteI can't think of a major societal change in my lifetime that either most people didn't see coming -- like atomic energy and the internet -- or that the Republicans didn't oppose (and still do), like Social Security and Medicare.
Today there are "No Wake" signs in the Florida Keys, not on waterways for boaters but on streets for car drivers because the streets are usually under water and their wakes hit porches and front doors. The good news is... in Miami Beach, the selling price of condos has gone up in the areas where the city has raised the streets. Another triumph of capitalism at taxpayer expense.
Apparently future sea level rise is having little effect on general real estate prices in the Miami area. Until the water is lapping at the threshholds of front doors, I guess it doesn't matter. It probably won't affect the older inhabitants of the area during their remaining years, but their legacy to their heirs may become worthless.
DeleteThe venom directed at Greta and Time Magazine is remarkable. They even claim she is a pawn with mental problems. Bottom line, Greta is aligned with the overwhelming consensus of climate scientists and the positions of all the major scientific societies both national and international. Her detractors have nothing but attitude and pseudoscience and bluster. They are angry because she outlines our present situation clearly and without politesse. How dare she say "how dare you?"
ReplyDeleteNow Trump has reportedly written a 6 page letter to Pelosi, highlighted with his signature sharpie pen demanding that she halt the impeachment proceedings, because "witch hunt". Because nothing says seriousness like sloppy black ink and irrational ranting.
DeleteI was away from the blog for a few days. I see that there was a post on the Malick film about Franz Jagerstatter. In case you'd want to know more about Jagerstatter, there's a very good essay about him by Jim Forest here: https://jimandnancyforest.com/2008/09/jagerstatter/
ReplyDeleteForest has written biographies of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton and Daniel Berrigan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Forest
Comprehensive mini-bio, Gene. Thanks. I'll read it again before I see the movie.
DeleteTime's list of Persons of the Year are at this Wikipedia page. There are a few Never-Heard-of-Hims, but on the whole it's a pretty good list.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year
Wallis Simpson, of all people!, was the first woman MOTY. I would have bet on Mrs. Chiang Kai-shek given Henry Luce's bewitchment with all things Chinese, but she got it two years later (after her husband). Three popes. I suspect you may have put Owen D. Young in your Who-He? category, but he was the Mike Bloomberg of his day. His predecessor in cleaning up Germany's war debt, Charles Gates Dawes, would have rated the cover if Time had started a little earlier. I had forgotten that America's Mayor and now Trump's Fixer had his year. The only total stinker on the list -- in terms of influence of events, which is Time's criteria, not personal greatness -- is Pierre Laval, who must have made it when he did because Luce had a grievance against Herbert Hoover, not because of any influence Laval himself had. He went on to be a traitor.
DeleteTom, yes, both Young and Laval are on my Whozzat? list. Also Hugh S. Johnson, James F. Byrnes, Mohammad Mossadegh, Harlow Curtice and David Ho.
DeleteThe Peter Ueberroth choice in 1984 doesn't stand the test of time too well - he sort of flamed onto the scene and then flamed out pretty quickly (and also possibly directed collusion against the baseball players union?)
Whether Greta turns out to be a Ueberroth (in terms of historical impact) or someone more significant is still yet tbd. As I've written - and preached - already, I admire her in any case. I am sure the Time editors do, too. I know for certain that Trump voters don't; guessing that Boris voters don't think particularly highly of her, either, but I can't say that for certain.
Mossadegh had a short, unhappy term as president of Iran (the CIA "rented" a mob and overthrew him, mostly to keep Russia from getting British Petroleum's oil, or so the CIA thought). But one thing about him I have always kept in my mind because it says so much about the Middle East: As a prominent statesman and president, he would have nothing to do with anyone from or representing Greece because he was still ticked off about what Alexander the Great did in Iran when it was still Persia.
Delete"Influence upon events" in Greta cases is partly generational. After all she started her campaign with "school strikes."
DeleteIn fast changing societies, the young people change more than adults. In the sixties the young people, free from any concerns about the economy were able to move on to issues like war, race, and gender.
Now young people are coming of age with the data on climate change, and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1%. Those were not top issues in the sixties.
Greta herself may not be remembers in the coming decades, but the young people who change the direction of the country will be remembers. The problems of climate change and concentration of wealth are not going to go away.