Greta Thunberg remains hyperactive. In the media, at universities, in films, on streets and public squares, in cities and in the countryside, she wages war not only against the climate crisis, but also against Israel, fascism and state terrorism. Not even well-behaved “Teacher’s Pet Denmark” escapes her wrath. A few weeks ago, she thundered outside Christiansborg: “Denmark is a colonialist state […] complicit in genocide and ecocide.”
That may be laughable, but as a phenomenon Thunberg is worth taking seriously. For she functions as a symbol, not merely as a person, and thus continues to shape the way the elite talks about climate and geopolitics. Her development from a purely climate icon into a radical critic of the system also tells us something about where the dominant stratum of decision-makers is situated.
But something is beginning to happen. The myth of Thunberg is starting to crack.
It is not only immensely interesting to examine how such a thing can happen; it also provides an insight into the enchantment itself: that Thunberg could in the first place become a mythological figure. Finally, it shows why myth criticism is an important method of conducting ideological analysis.
The pure myth of the child prodigy
The myth of Greta Thunberg was from the outset a perfect myth, namely the myth of the child prodigy. She entered the stage of the great mythological drama as the pure, uncorrupted child who speaks truth to power. She was both innocence and witness, both victim and judge. She was not merely an activist, but the incarnation of the future, elevated above the dirty compromises of adults.
That is why she proved so effective.
The myth endowed her with a double authority. Intellectually, because she spoke on behalf of “science”. Morally, because she spoke on behalf of “the children” and the unborn generations.
In that sense, Greta Thunberg was a textbook example of a modern myth. A historical and ideological product disguised as nature. The figure of Greta was not supposed to appear political. She was something more and something else: a moral authority standing outside the game and therefore able to point to everyone’s guilt.
But the more effectively the moralising purity functioned, the greater the need to conceal that the Greta figure was also involved in concrete political conflicts. The myth required her to remain a child even after she became an adult, to remain “pure” even after her activism became professional, strategic and increasingly extremist.
The first cracks appear
It is this built-in tension that is now beginning to crack.
For the moment Greta Thunberg no longer speaks solely about climate, but aligns herself with anti-capitalist projects and the furthest reaches of the pro-Palestinian left, the politicisation that has always existed beneath the surface becomes visible.
When Thunberg becomes associated with terrorist movements and antisemitism, she becomes a party to a conflict in which hatred of the West, of Israel and of Jews in general thrives. A sphere where people are not defending abstract “human rights”, but charged political alliances. She is no longer our global “conscience”.
Consequently, her symbolic value changes in character. The myth of the pure child who merely demands responsibility for the climate turns out to be what it fundamentally always was: an ideological project with enemies, friends and blind spots. And then the halo begins to rust, the saintly cloak develops cracks, and the holy image begins to fade.
The projection screen has been scratched
Precisely because the myth was so effective, Thunberg became a global projection screen for the guilty conscience of the Western middle class. She carried the guilt, sinfulness and failings of adults, but also their hopes and longing for purification.
As the myth begins to crack, what is scandalous becomes apparent to most people: that so many knowingly allowed themselves to be fascinated by a narrative that transformed a single young activist – the spoiled child of moralism – into a secular saint. Now that the saintly halo is fading, it once again becomes possible to ask the question that should always have been asked: What ideological project is Greta Thunberg advancing?
As a child prodigy, she possessed such clear vision that she could see what was wrong, and her morality was so pure that she enjoyed the privilege of lecturing others that we ought to be ashamed, and of telling us what we should do.
The child prodigy has retired, but still receives pocket money for her theatre of hatred in what increasingly resembles a permanent school excursion for which the adults continue to pay the fare.
But when Thunberg has disappeared, the myth will no doubt find other figures.