Teeny-Bopper Revolutionaries: Part 5 of a Deep Dive into Jacques Ellul's "Autopsy of Revolution"

You need the organizational skills of the managers to turn a revolt into a revolution. But the process of institutionalizing the revolution at the same time domesticates it.

47. Teeny-Bopper Revolutionaries: Part 5 of a Deep Dive into Jacques Ellul's "Autopsy of Revolution"

We see a similar scene unfold again and again these days. Earnest, pink haired youths gluing themselves to priceless works of art while seemingly helpless gallery guards and curators stand around helpless. Or they are gluing themselves to the road, stopping traffic and annoying busy people whose livelihoods depend upon them getting where they are going in a timely manner. Almost daily there is some “protest” for some “cause” or another. They believe themselves to be revolutionaries, bravely fighting against an unjust, oppressive and intolerable regime. They are fighting for their futures. The planet is being ruined. Someone is being threatened by “hate.” Their cause seems to them to be utterly righteous. But most of us know, or at least sense, that all is not as it seems. So what is happening? What makes a writer like Ellul so potent today is that he identified the early signs, put the pieces together, and laid out the trajectory of event which would lead toward the daily e…