where does it end
Nov. 4th, 2024 02:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleIt's a classic story, practically a fairy tale.
The protagonist is a prince. [Ours is the son of a wealthy and powerful family. We don't call them princes.]
Kings and queens and magical beings both good and evil attended his christening. [High government officials and captains of industry attended his christening.]
When he was a child, his uncle became king. The family seemed beloved by the whole country. Our young prince began his education with other children of privilege, in the expectation that he would grow up to someday take power. Then his uncle was murdered, and the family struggled to hold everything together.
When our protagonist was on the cusp of adolescence, his father tried to seize the throne. He attracted a considerable following before being murdered. Our young prince was traumatized by his father's death. He drank heavily. He was weak-willed and easily influenced, and he fell in with schoolmates who were petty criminals. He became a drug dealer and a thief. His name and wealth bought him a position in government, but only for a few months. It quickly became clear that he was unqualified, as he had spent his time in school drinking rather than preparing for exams.
If the story had ended there, in 1983, it would be a sad little cautionary tale about how a child of privilege could turn into a drug-addicted criminal, without proper guidance.
At one point, this wastrel gets arrested for heroin possession. In lieu of prison, the judge makes him do drug rehab, and makes him work without pay for an environmental organization. Because he is easily influenced, he turns around and spends the next 30 years working to protect the environment. He was really, really, good at it. He got off drugs, passed the bar, and did staggering amounts of good work to clean up the Hudson River.
If the story had ended here, it would be a happy little parable about turning one's life around. About how a drug-addicted thief could turn into an environmental activist who helped a lot of people.
But we're talking about Robert F Kennedy Jr, and he didn't spend the rest of his life cleaning up rivers. Being easy to influence makes a person vulnerable to batshit conspiracy theories, even when they are off drugs and spending hours every day working towards an admirable goal. He started following Andrew Wakefield 20 years ago, and he's just gone deeper and deeper against vaccines since then.
Stories never really end, but if the story ended here, it would be a pathetic parable about how a environmental activist who helped a lot of people turned into an anti-vax conspiracy theorist who threatened the world's health.
The protagonist is a prince. [Ours is the son of a wealthy and powerful family. We don't call them princes.]
Kings and queens and magical beings both good and evil attended his christening. [High government officials and captains of industry attended his christening.]
When he was a child, his uncle became king. The family seemed beloved by the whole country. Our young prince began his education with other children of privilege, in the expectation that he would grow up to someday take power. Then his uncle was murdered, and the family struggled to hold everything together.
When our protagonist was on the cusp of adolescence, his father tried to seize the throne. He attracted a considerable following before being murdered. Our young prince was traumatized by his father's death. He drank heavily. He was weak-willed and easily influenced, and he fell in with schoolmates who were petty criminals. He became a drug dealer and a thief. His name and wealth bought him a position in government, but only for a few months. It quickly became clear that he was unqualified, as he had spent his time in school drinking rather than preparing for exams.
If the story had ended there, in 1983, it would be a sad little cautionary tale about how a child of privilege could turn into a drug-addicted criminal, without proper guidance.
At one point, this wastrel gets arrested for heroin possession. In lieu of prison, the judge makes him do drug rehab, and makes him work without pay for an environmental organization. Because he is easily influenced, he turns around and spends the next 30 years working to protect the environment. He was really, really, good at it. He got off drugs, passed the bar, and did staggering amounts of good work to clean up the Hudson River.
If the story had ended here, it would be a happy little parable about turning one's life around. About how a drug-addicted thief could turn into an environmental activist who helped a lot of people.
But we're talking about Robert F Kennedy Jr, and he didn't spend the rest of his life cleaning up rivers. Being easy to influence makes a person vulnerable to batshit conspiracy theories, even when they are off drugs and spending hours every day working towards an admirable goal. He started following Andrew Wakefield 20 years ago, and he's just gone deeper and deeper against vaccines since then.
Stories never really end, but if the story ended here, it would be a pathetic parable about how a environmental activist who helped a lot of people turned into an anti-vax conspiracy theorist who threatened the world's health.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-04 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-05 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-06 05:23 pm (UTC)I also (at the same time, coincidentally) lived with an alcoholic who thought he could just choose to stop drinking. And he couldn't. Perhaps because all the people in his research group drank, or perhaps because it's just really hard for some people to stop and he wasn't that strong.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-07 12:53 am (UTC)It is hard to change when the social situation around you won't change with you. It does take strength to leave a certain group and try to find another. The intention is noble. The consequences are still real.
(Which may come across as harsher in text than the tone of voice that it would actually be spoken with.)