Once upon a time, children were to be seen and not heard — and interrupting adult conversations, let alone temper-tantrums would result in at least a quick trip upstairs to bed without any supper. But, back then we were a serious culture, one which soberly entertained Big Ideas and actually built things which lasted.
At least, they lasted until they were destroyed in a fit of pique by spoiled children.
Because nowadays we are, to quote Lawrence of Arabia, “a little people; a silly people”. Now we allow ourselves to be ruled by the mawkish fiction that “the children are the future… let them lead the way”. It was the Boomers who waxed nostalgic for “living in a child’s dream” before they were even in their mid-20s. Their gooey sentimentalism has only gotten worse, spawning the ghastly, scowling visage of Swedish brat Greta Thunberg.
The only problem with this veneration of arrogant adolescent certainty is that, as David Cole writes, “teens are very, very stupid. They are tiny-brained, feebleminded followers who rarely think things through and have not yet grasped notions like ‘consequences’”. This is no mere middle-aged grousing: it’s the inescapable fact of neuroscience.
Lest anyone doubt that teenagers are the very last people anyone should take seriously as avatars of change, just consider the yawning gap between their foot-stamping, breath-holding demands and what they actually do.
The cardinal rule when it comes to environmental virtue-signaling is that people give up what they’re willing to give up. Young people are no different. If being environmentally sound required sacrificing anything that a self-described environmental warrior actually valued, the conversation would quickly change to a different topic. One’s own habits are necessary; it’s everyone else’s that need to change.
Young people are, as we also know, absolutely besotted with celebrity culture. British surveys show that young people want to grow up, not to be engineers or astronauts, but “famous”. Not “famous rock star” or “famous actor”, or anything even that trite, mind you: because even that kind of superficial fame necessitates a great deal of dedication and hard work. Nope, being famous for its own sake is the highest pinnacle these cretinous sheep aspire to.
So, their narcissistic environmental hypocrisy is merely an aping of the celebrity eco-crites like Leonardo DiCaprio, Al Gore or Harry’n’Meghan.
Most young people have not yet reached such a flamboyant level of energy use, but if they could, they undoubtedly would, with as little sense of anachronism as that of Al Gore in his energy-guzzling mansion. These are the consumers who keep football fields of computer servers buzzing round the clock to support their social media habits. If being green meant turning off one’s phone for 22 hours a day or foregoing the latest smartphone upgrade, the reasons why such sacrifices are not required would spout from every Gen Z-er and millennial’s lips.
Try to find a school, today, without air-conditioning. That’s, like, a human right, man. As is being bussed everywhere in Mummy and Daddy’s gigantic SUV.
The meteoric rise of food-delivery apps, producing torrents of plastic and paper waste and a constant circulation of cars and electric bikes, has been fueled by young people’s demand for convenience and instant gratification. Cooking is apparently unthinkable. At best, one buys precut and washed food in the inevitable plastic containers. A daily Starbucks habit is deemed consistent with railing against environmentally destructive corporate greed […] Uber drivers in college towns report that students regularly call a car to get to class, rather than walk or ride a bike.
At the same time as they pose as champions of nature, these are generations further removed from the reality of the natural world than Louis XIV. Marie Antoinette at least milked real — if tame — cows at her countryside playground, Hameau de la Reine. Like, totally gross.
The children’s crusade for gun control is another alleged example of the purity of spirit of the young. But anti-gun youth crusaders are prepared to give up guns because, in almost all cases, they have none. Similarly, student protesters—whom we are supposed to admire for heroically skipping classes to agitate around their latest grievance—place little value on those classes and suffer no consequences for missing them.
City Journal
Even more hypocritical than their ecological play-acting is pampered Western youth’s zeal for socialism. They live daily surrounded by luxuries that even an Astor or Vanderbilt could have dreamed of, all of which is brought to them by capitalist democracy.
One might almost wish a genuine communist revolution on them, just to witness the incomprehending, ovine shock on their sleek, smug little faces, as they’re lined up against the wall, or sent to the gulag.