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Oh the irony of naming a scientific discovery over someone whose entire platform is anti-education in nature. I cant tell you how many environmentalist organizations I had to stop donating to or participate in because they adopted her image too. She makes me sad :(
@freemo
Huh, how is she anti-education?
@timorl What do you mean how? A central part of her message, what she is famous for, is telling people not to go to school on fridays.
@freemo This is a very strange way of looking at things. The walkouts are supposed to be a protest, right? Would you call any people advocating strikes "anti-work"?
@timorl No I wouldnt, but I also dont see those two as comparable.
With work the person striking has a need for that job, they are making a sacrifice (giving up pay) in order to enact change.
Kids playing hookie, however, are doing exactly what they want to do. Most kids dont want to be in school and would be more than happy to find a reason to get a day off.
Thats like calling it a strike if you take the day off work to go get ice cream and binge watch netflix. It isnt a strike if you are doing what you find enjoyable and make no sacrifices.
Moreover the thing you strike from is also the entity you wish to change. The strike intending to exert pressure on the institution you withhold your services from. So striking from school simply makes no sense in that regard either.
@freemo I think of the first part you write about as a necessary evil, rather than an inherent property of protests. Social change is difficult, the less inconvenience people trying to enact it face, the better.
As for the second part, I can think of few other things non-adults could do, that would exert more pressure on the institutions, and all of them either illegal or infeasible. It's worth remembering that, while schools certainly are a form of education, they also have different roles -- in particular keeping children/teenagers in a relatively safe place where their parents or society don't have to worry about them doing something stupid. If kids don't go to school, society has to figure out different solutions for these problems and that might be sufficiently annoying.
It would be better if the kids could do something more directly targeted at the institutions responsible, but those are governments. Influencing them can almost exclusively be done by voting or lobbying (neither possible for non-adaults, usually), so in this case they have to be targeted indirectly through society.
Maybe it's just my imagination that is failing me -- what form of protest would you suggest to teenagers, that would not be easy to ignore and legal?
@timorl I can think of a **lot** of things young adults could be doing that is both more effective and would represent an actual strike.
The most obvious and straight forward would be if they spent those fridays standing outside the school holding signs all day rain or snow cold or dry.. but aside from a few exceptions on a few days that isnt the form it is taking.
Second adults could do the same things as kids, they could jsut not go to work on fridays to strike and not bother standing outside with signs.. They dont because it wont enact change as readily as being visible and outside to protest. It is no different for kids, the fact that they are taking fridays off and not actually making any sacrafices themselves only shows they are not committed to the change, if they were they wouldn't be taking the lazy way out so often.
There are also countless other ways I could think of they could be striking that might be worthy of some respect... for example every friday they could refuse to use any fossile fuels, no electricity, refuse to get in any cars to go anywhere. Walk to school, take their bike to school that day, dont charge or use their phone, or their computer on that day. funny none of that is part of the "protest" either, most kids I've seen just sit at home in an airconditioned house.
Another form could be if instead of protesting during school they did it on the weekend. A hunger strike every friday to monday is going to turn some heads real fast.
There are literally countless ways that i can think of infinitely more effective (and effective) at protesting then to choose not to educate yourself everyday. That isnt putting any pressure on adults, its not taking anything away from anyone that would exert pressure. Its literally nothing more than being lazy and skipping out ont he responsibilities you already want to skip out on.
Exactly. If Greta's message was to go to school at 6am and instead of being inside in a warm class room they were actually standing outside in the cold and rain every friday with signs then I would be a lot less critical.
If kids were actually getting arrested for this, or facing repercussions such as not getting into college I might agree with you.
However the response has been almost entierly to just let them. Many colleges have already told them anything related to this protest on their record wont effect them getting into college and I have not heard of any significant reports of truancy officers acting on this in any way.
If this were an actual thing and there was some concern fromin from the kids Id be likely to agree on this point.
@freemo @nothingplanet I'm also very annoyed by your insistence that protestors must suffer for it to be a legitimate protest. Social change is difficult for inherent reasons, mostly because society will resist it in many ways. If we want the world to improve we shouldn't insist on making it even harder.
No thats not what I said at all. I said there must be some sacrafice for it to be a "strike" not for it to be a protest, those are different words. What they are doing is not a strike, but it is a protest, jsut a very poorly designed one that makes those protesting look bad and is counter productive to the cause.
@freemo
This doesn't really address my main issue -- why do you insist they must suffer to be treated seriously? And I'm not asking why you think society won't take them seriously if they don't suffer (because I don't think this is the case for most of society, certainly not for me), this is a question personally addressed to you (and other people who feel the same, I guess).
@nothingplanet
