I have been thinking about the recent Extinction Rebellion protests in London over the last couple of weeks, and I've also been thinking about Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old Swedish girl with Asperger's Syndrome who has become the popular figurehead for the protests.
For a week, my journey to work from South London to Aldwych was blocked by the Extinction Rebellion protest on Waterloo Bridge, so I and many others had to walk through the protest event to get to work on the other side. I always like to walk across the bridge anyway, and it was nice also to have it inhabited, for a while, by something like a Glastonbury Green Field event, with peaceful protests, plants, vegan food stalls, an improvised stage for music and talks, peace posters and placards, and people meditating and hugging each other. There is something to be said for an event like this which stops the relentless daily grind of London commerce and creates a space for quiet and reflection, and the vibe also chimed with my personal rebellion against my job, which I was leaving at the end of that week.
Walking across and seeing an old folkie, guitar in hand, leaving the stage, to applause from a reasonably sized crowd, I was given cause to regret turning down the chance to play at the protest myself, which a friend of mine had offered a few weeks before. I would have liked to sing my songs about London rivers and urban wildlife in that setting, to an attentive and respectful audience.
I am happy the protests are going on, and are raising environmental concerns, which most people share. My difficulty with the protests is not that I doubt that climate change is caused by human activity, or that we face the threat, at some point, of a global calamity, it is to do with what realistically and effectively can be done. I am turned off by idealist rhetoric which calls for an end to economic growth and the overthrow of capitalism, which these protests seem full of. The Waterloo protest village or the Glastonbury Green Field are nice places to go, but they do not represent an alternative way of life that can be replicated nationally or globally; the wheels of global industry, in China, in India and other emerging nations, will necessarily forge ahead with little regard for the wishful thinking of some English dreamers. Most ironically, probably the most effective way of achieving a post industrial, sustainable eco-society that these events model in microcosm is by allowing the great global climate change calamity to come about; only then might a few surviving eco-warriors be able to inherit the world to eke out a rude living from whatever recyclable technology and natural resources are left behind.
Young Greta Thunberg has attracted huge attention recently, speaking to the UN, the European Parliament, and to UK parliamentarians, about her fears for the catastrophic consequences of climate change, and the need for our leaders to take immediate and drastic action to stop it. She has publicly shed tears for the the extinction of species, the erosion of top-soils, and for world deforestation, and her speeches have inspired children and adults to cry with her, and to demand action. A possible Nobel Peace Prize for Greta has been mooted, but she has also attracted some negative comments, not just for her views, but because of concerns that the youngster, who may be vulnerable due to the problems she experiences because of her Asperger's, is being exploited and may not be best able to deal with the media attention and personal criticism that comes with it. Some of the comments about her, which fix on her personal appearance which are perhaps attributable to her Asperger's, have been unkind, and have brought many of her supporters to rally fiercely to her defence.
In a Times interview this week, Greta has offered a positive take on her Asperger's. She says it enables her to see things "very black and white. I don't like compromising because it's either this or that. You can't be a little bit sustainable. Either you are sustainable or you're not sustainable. If I had not been different I would have kept on going like everyone else and not realised there was a crisis. So it has definitely helped me." She goes on, "It was especially lonely in the beginning because I was reading all these things and it was so alarming and so serious and yet no one was talking about it. No one I knew was even aware of these things. We few who actually understand the importance of it feel quite insane when we think about it because it's so big."
I have a couple of observations about what she says here. The first thing is that, though Greta Thunberg may think that her Asperger's has helped her to focus and think about the issues of climate change, I'd hope she would agree that her Asperger's, in itself, does not testify to the truth of everything she says. The first of the three demands of the Extinction Rebellion movement is for our leaders to "Tell the Truth". But, to give one example, as this BBC article Climate change: Is Greta Thunberg right about UK carbon emissions? makes clear, telling the truth, getting to the facts, or agreeing on the facts, are not necessarily easy things to do. I suspect Greta and her Extinction Rebellion supporters are inclined to put forward the most alarming interpretation of facts and figures that they can in order to make the most forceful points and to drive opinion in the direction that they want it to go. This way of using language and information instrumentally, as a way of directing people's emotions and opinions is nothing unusual. It's what just about every pressure group, political organisation or corporate business does - it's called public relations. PR, however, does not sit easily with Extinction Rebellion's first principle, which is to Tell the Truth. Some of what she says is no doubt true, and other things she says may not be, but what can't be in doubt is that Greta Thunberg's appeal is principally to our feelings, rather than to facts, and for this she is an archetypal 21st Century icon.
The second thing I wanted to say about what Greta said there is a more personal take. I can really identify with her intense and consuming obsession with an issue (in her case, climate change), to the point of being "quite insane" about it, because, as she sees it, the issue is so serious. My obsession is not climate change, but the gender identity issue, my revolt against the extraordinary 21st Century belief that being a man or a woman is a matter of how each individual "identifies", rather than a biological fact about oneself. Since becoming aware of the issue less than two years ago, it now intrudes upon my thoughts every day (my partner even refers to it as "your obsession"). I just cannot believe that so many seemingly sensible people have fallen in line with this; how subjectivity and sentiment has been prioritised over science and objectivity, and that only a brave few souls, mainly women, are speaking up about it, and have been vilified and persecuted for doing so. It has smashed my faith in the liberal left as being the natural upholders of rational, scientific and critical thought. It has, in short, made me feel highly alienated and "quite insane".
So have I gone a bit mad? Or am I right to be as concerned as I am? I think both are true. There must be something about my personality that makes me so activated about this issue, when most around me seem not to be, but that does not mean that I am wrong. So what is it? I do not wish to talk about autism flippantly, because my sister has two autistic sons who are severely disabled and need constant care, but it has come up a few times before, in conversation with friends, and not unkindly, that I may have a tendency towards Asperger's; that I may be just a little "on the spectrum". A certain remoteness suggests this, at least to some people; a bit of a disengaged way with me, a tendency to drift off, an indifference to the company of individuals and groups, a struggle, generally in life, to get to know people and build friendships. I do not put a lot of stock in this, or take it too seriously, but it has come up, and I have entertained the idea, even if only to dismiss it, or to decide "so what! I manage, I find ways, and I'm OK". I suspect some who know me may recognise what I am getting at here, others might think it fanciful or even vain of me.
There has also been speculation that our PM Theresa May is a little bit autistic. Her awkward mannerisms and body movement, her apparent lack of friends, her robotic reliance on scripts and her dogged and obsessive adherence to the now lost cause of her Brexit deal, have earned her the nickname The Maybot. These personality traits may occasionally endear her, but more often she is attacked and mocked for them. Greta Thunberg's supporters have been outraged when the personal oddness of their favourite has been pointed at, but I doubt many of them are bothered if politicians they disagree with are picked on in a similar way.
A final thought, there is plenty to suggest that a disproportionate number of autistic youth identify as transgender. Why could this be? It might be advocated that autistic kids are better at filtering out social pressure and can be more attuned to their true gender identity, which may not correspond to their biological sex (or their "gender as assigned at birth", if you prefer). An alternative explanation might be that young people with autism disorders are more suggestible, and may more easily become attached to such narratives which may explain their unease with the world. Those are just two possibilities.
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