The
President and The Teenager
In 2019 a Swedish
teenager became the catalyst for a global movement. Much has been written about Greta Thunberg’s
‘emotional address’ to the UN but one the most important statements she made
was largely ignored. ‘All you can talk
about is money and fairy tales about eternal economic growth.’ With that
statement Greta, not unlike the little boy who was not fooled by the Emperor’s
new clothes, exposed the abject failure of the climate summits to make a
significant difference.
President Putin seemingly
spoke on behalf of all those naked emperors with his response to Thunberg:
The
fact that young people, teenagers, pay attention to the acute problems of the
modern world is right and good and we should support them. But when somebody
uses children and teenagers in their own interests it deserves only to be
condemned. Nobody explained to Greta that
the modern world is complicated and complex it changes fast. People in Africa and in many Asian Countries
want to be as wealthy as people in Sweden.
How can it be done? By making
them use solar energy which is plentiful in Africa. Has anybody explained the cost of it? But is it accessible technology for
developing economies and countries?
Hardly accessible but people there want to live like in Sweden and
nothing can stop them. Go and explain to
them that they must live in poverty for 20-30 years, as well as their
children. Explain it to them. Overall of course we cannot but support the
idea of developing renewable energy sources.
We just need to be realistic.
Putin’s response has all
the hall marks of neoliberalism, a position savaged by Galbraith: ‘The
modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness.’ Yet for many it seemed
a clash between the hard-headed realism of the political class and the naïve
idealism of youth. Thunberg had called
Putin out for putting her future at risk.
Putin responded with a Thatcherite response: There is No Alternative
(TINA). Some found his response
convincing but others, notably those promoting the Extinction Rebellion (XT)
did not.
Thunberg is right; the emperor is indeed naked. Thunberg is far from a lone voice. Brechin’s analysis of late twentieth century public opinion polls indicated that, in 1993 respondents in 24 countries rates climate change either a very serious or serious concern. A UN study of 2007 indicates that global public opinion has further consolidated.
When we look at the history of political philosophy
we find that it has been at its most febrile when we are faced with divisive
political conflicts, confronted with deeply disputed questions, conflicts and
questions which test our capacity to find some underlying basis for
agreement. Under those circumstances the
role of political philosophy is to articulate a way forward. We are at such a moment in history. That Thunberg was able to spark off the
Extinction Rebellion is an indication that she was articulating concerns that
cut across national boundaries. The role
of political philosophy is fourfold.
It shapes our political culture and assists in settling the problem of
order. When we lose confidence in our
capacity to settle the problem of order, we then use political philosophy to
help us redefine how we can constructively deal with one another. Thirdly political philosophy helps us to
understand how our political institutions are designed and finally political
philosophy also has a utopian feature; it aims to probe the limits of practical
political possibility. What those
four roles also demonstrate is that no political philosophy is ever fixed – the
most we can hope for is that it enables us to think through our current
challenges.
Thunberg and the XR
movement her comments spawned have lost patience with the official
response. The question becomes ‘what is
the alternative?’ This is where political philosophy can contribute. To ensure that any resultant theory is
relevant we need to start with an understanding of the problem we face.
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