The Age of the Privileged Revolutionary
You would think that those marching in the streets decrying grand, time-tested systems like capitalism and law & order might count themselves among the ranks of the lowest economic tier or otherwise belong to the fringes of society. Curiously, this does not seem to be the case.
Instead, the radical campaigns to reorder society which saturate our news feeds today are invariably comprised of young, digitally-connected, financially-cushioned individuals. This to say, by most historical standards, the street revolutionaries of modernity are surprisingly, even bewilderingly, “privileged”.
They shout with hoarse voices and picket with garish posters and make grim references to “burning the system down,” yet large numbers of them have smartphones in their pockets, diplomas on their walls, and go home to a decent job and place to live. (That the vast majority are college-educated is a strikingly crucial part of the story of the modern revolutionary’s evolution, but more on this later.)
Of course, it is fashionable stumble to make to presume that modernity stands on the brink of apocalypse — to make the presumption, say, that street protests have reached new, game-changing heights of frequency and violence which they have scarcely approached before.
