Paying the Swede-geld

Insufferable neurotic high-school dropout Greta Thunberg has popped up in another news cycle, this time for her presence on the cover of the the first edition of Vogue Scandinavia.

Greta Thunberg adorns the cover of Vogue and criticizes the fashion industry
Berlingske.dk (Ritzau/TT), August 9

It’s hard to determine who comes off as more ridiculous here, Thunberg or Vogue.

The churlish moppet Thunberg is using the magazine as a platform to lash out at the very industry the magazine serves. In an instagram post featuring an imagine of the magazine cover with herself on it, the demonic little luddite writes:

Interview in Vogue Scandinavia, link in bio. The fashion industry is a huge contributor to the climate-and ecological emergency, not to mention its impact on the countless workers and communities who are being exploited around the world in order for some to enjoy fast fashion that many treat as disposables. Many are making it look as if the fashion industry are starting to take responsibility, by spending fantasy amounts on campaigns where they portray themselves as ”sustainable”, ”ethical”, ”green”, ”climate neutral” and ”fair”. But let’s be clear: This is almost never anything but pure green washing. You cannot mass produce fashion or consume ”sustainably” as the world is shaped today. That is one of the many reasons why we will need a system change.

It’s tempting to applaud the girl for sheer chutzpah but a slow walk through the logic of what she’s doing reveals it isn’t chutzpah but confusion.

By Thunberg’s own logic, the fashion industry is a climate horror.

Vogue Scandinavia is part of that industry.

An industry that must be destroyed.

She wants to get that message out.

So she’ll allow herself to be featured on the cover of Vogue Scandinavia, which will help them sell more copies, which will contribute to bringing about the end times, but at least it’ll be end times brought about by Thunbergian sanctimony instead of shallow vanity.

As for the magazine itself, it makes perfect sense for them to latch on to climate issues—what could be more fashionable?—but as the demi-troll they’ve put on their cover makes clear, there are plenty of ways to portray themselves as sustainable, ethical, green, etc, without befouling themselves by worshipping at the altar of this loathsome viper.

How would you feel as an advertiser in Vogue Scandinavia? “Say, our new autumn line of leather jackets is really strong, what say we promote it with a splashy two-page ad buy in that magazine promoting the young woman who wants to burn our industry to the ground and salt the earth where it stood?”

Taking it all in context, Thunberg’s message is: “The fashion industry is destroying the planet, so buy the fashion magazine with me on the cover, you planet-destroying lemmings!”

And Vogue Scandinavia’s message is: “We hate our industry and our readers and most of all ourselves; please join us in our suicidal masochism.”

The best that can be said about these people—Thunberg and her adoring throngs, Vogue Scandinavia and any advertisers and readers hanging in there for issue #2 (if there is one)—is that they deserve one another.

Richly.

That much said, the nagging little nitwit’s usage of the phrase “green washing” is apt and worth holding onto.

Fashion certainly isn’t the only industry engaged in the effort to purchase environmental indulgences with a handful of carbon offsets and a little PR razzle dazzle; nor is “greenwashing” the only indulgence game in town: there’s also racewashing, sexwashing, even covidwashing. Grand and glorious gestures ostentatiously trumpeted by people and organizations bending over backwards to pay the Dane-geld to the various moral hucksters of our era.

Does no one remember what they say about the Dane-geld?

Or at least what they wrote about it?

Or at least what Rudyard Kipling wrote about?

Dane-Geld
by Rudyard Kipling

It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
  To call upon a neighbour and to say: –
"We invaded you last night – we are quite prepared to fight,
  Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
  And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
  And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
  To puff and look important and to say: –
"Though we know we should defeat you,
  we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
  But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
  You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation,
  For fear they should succumb and go astray;
So when you are requested to pay up or be molested,
  You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
  No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
  And the nation that plays it is lost!"