Yule

[degringolade]

Impressionism / Lilla Cabot Perry/ The Trio, Tokyo, Japan

I just have to get through the next couple of weeks.  The solstice is on Saturday and the days will finally start getting longer. 

Screed:

I almost want to spend more time talking about Greta, but the whole deal depresses me.  There is so much there to discuss.  So many unsavory characters, so much hypocrisy, so much privilege, so much using.  No one is exempt.  Greta at least has the excellent reason of being used by folks.  She is telling the truth as she sees it, and I for the most part agree with what she says.

But I really do see her lionization as a cultural icon going bad.  The folks at the top who move the chess pieces around are patting her on the head and telling her that she is a good girl.  But the folks doing the patting are elite on the outside of power and are using her to get to the inside.  Once her handlers get there, their ardor will cool and she will be neatly embarrassed and discarded.  

I think that the key thing to remember is that there is no way that Greta, in her youth and her innocence, can understand that the middle class lifestyle that she seems to think is the norm and the goal simply isn't sustainable.  She is Marie Antoinette, an innocent asking why can't everyone munch on a brioche if they are hungry. 

I wish her well, I hope that she keeps speaking the truth, but I don't think that she is going to get through this unscathed.  But then again, neither are any of us.