Now hear me out.
The National Review has a scalding—but more or less fair—-evisceration of Greta Thunberg, the past-her-pull-date former teen climate change activist. An excerpt:
You remember young Greta, right? The vinegar-rictused, Swedish ecological activist whom the media turned into a global celebrity back in 2018…Who can forget the climax of it all, the legendary comedy of Thunberg’s 2019 United Nations address? Visibly reading from a script and adopting actorly mannerisms — shrieking “HOW DARE YOU?” and bawling about “stolen dreams” and “stolen childhood” — Thunberg condemned the capitalist West for desecrating the hopes of neurotics like herself. “We’ll be watching you,” she warned icily…A neurodivergent teenage girl was granted supreme moral authority over mankind by adults desperate to weaponize her “vulnerability” to club the world into bending to the eco-socialist agenda pushed by her handlers. We were asked to take it all extremely seriously…Hungering for continued relevance, Thunberg responded by escalating her tactics, seeking arrest at anti-mining and anti-oil protests across Europe to garner headlines. But the media reaction was tepid, and the thrill was gone. It surprised me not the slightest bit when she instantly transitioned from environmental activism (old and busted) to pro-Palestinian activism (new and sexy with the kids these days) in the wake of the October 7 massacre. A year later, she was performatively arresting herself on podcast appearances to signal her solidarity with Hamas.
The bombardment ends with this: “As for myself, I couldn’t care less about Thunberg’s fate. If the Israeli Navy wants to hole her boat below the waterline as the French did to sink the Rainbow Warrior, then it’s no problem of mine. I don’t ever want to write about her again, and unless she escalates to suicide bombing, I intend not to. For as much as her astringent mien and unearned pretense make her a figure of comedy, I find her morally repulsive.”
I understand this reaction; Thunberg is (and always was, I felt) a uniquely unattractive, doctrinaire, offensive activist who just happened to be a child with an aura of sincerity and innocence as well as perceived authenticity pushing the “Think of the children!” lament. Now she doesn’t even have that. However, I realized yesterday that she is, in reality, only acting out the same pathological pattern that we have seen for centuries among child stars.
Child performer activist Paul Petersen, himself a former victim of the phenomenon, explained to me how these children are exploited by greedy and ruthless adults for their own purposes—-power, wealth, influence—as long as the naive vehicles are cute and popular. Then the kids grow up and their exploiters move on, but the children do not. They have been made addicts to adrenaline and attention; with very few exceptions ( Paul says the keys for those are intelligence and responsible parenting) they spend years and even a lifetime chasing the elusive rush they had when the world seemed to be at their feet and everyone loved them.
They are victims. Greta Thunberg is a victim. Like Danny Bonaduce, the former red-headed, wise-cracking moppet of “The Partridge Family,” she no longer is cute, and now is desperately chasing her past with ill-chosen strategies. Danny sought infamy and pathos through drugs, verbal outbursts and pathetic TV reality shows. Greta’s path is even worse: pimping for Hamas and anti-Semitism. Difficult as it may be, we should try not to hate her and focus our enmity on the people who made her this way.
It’s frightening to imagine what causes poor Greta will latch onto as she tries to recapture the thrill of having the world (well, the stupid and gullible world) hanging on her every pronouncement. This is a slow-moving disaster we will probably be watching unfold for decades.
Ethics Alarms 
I don’t think we should hate at all. We can be repulsed by something or even diametrically opposed so some behavior but hate focuses on the person not the behavior. However, she is now an adult and irrespective of her being used in the past she alone decides her fate. We can focus our enmity on the behaviors of both Greta and her makers. As an adult she is not a victim anymore.
And is particularly difficult as neurodivergent people often become fixated on certain topics, hobbies, people, learning as much about preferred subjects as possible and driving the people around them nuts with their obsessions. Greta has been known as the “expert” on climate change. Now that climate change is less fashionable than other causes, she must become an “expert” on something else that will keep the world’s attention on her.
Children aren’t the only victims being “exploited by greedy and ruthless adults for their own purposes.” See: Sheehan, Cindy.
For better or for worse, the irrepressible Babylon Bee has made considerable bank lampooning her; to wit:
Hamas Agrees To Surrender If Europe Will Take Greta Thunberg Back
That (IMO) does pose an ethics question: Is she fair game? Her handlers have placed her in a target rich position which allows, nay encourages, ridicule; would it be poor manners not to oblige?
PWS
I think there is a question of when someone who has been exploited gains the agency to decide whether or not she will agree to continue the behavior.
At this point, Greta can decide that her youthful passion for climate change activism was manipulated and used by others and stop making herself a public spectacle or she can decide to own her now-adult choices and be prepared to defend them as the adult she is. If it’s the latter, she’s fair game.
She is an adult. Besides throwing ideological tantrums, holding her breath and stomping her feet, she is openly throwing in with antisemites and calling for the end of Israel. She is fair game. She is subject, and should be subjected, to as much ridicule as is humanly possible.
jvb
I read an essay a while back about blues music. The essay made a point, “Blues is not a matter of ethnicity. Tiger Woods still cannot sing the blues, Gary Coleman could.”
Child actors, though.
Was not Dean Stockwell a child actor?
Mickey Rooney as well.
A year later, she was performatively arresting herself on podcast appearances to signal her solidarity with Hamas.
If she has a problem with the likes of the National Alliance, the White Aryan Resistance, or the Stormfront White Nationalist Community, it is only because she considers them to be rival gangs.
Where are the posts about Palantir’s database? About the way Trump and Elon are handling their fallout on the internet? If you’re the unbiased critical thinker that my dad says you are, where are the posts about that?
They are where about a 871,092 post topics are, on the runway waiting for me to have the time and inclination to write them. The database I can put behind the rest with ease: The NY TIMES writes, “In March, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the federal government to share data across agencies, raising questions over whether he might compile a master list of personal information on Americans that could give him untold surveillance power.”
This is fake news. freaking out over what Trump “might” do is fake news. The agencies sharing data (except data that it’s already illegal to share” just makes sense. I don’t waste time writing about what would be unethical IF it were done, unless there is a point to the hypothetical.