You're viewing a single thread.
Let's see...
- Nazism
- McCarthyism
- Vietnam War
- Racial Injustice
- South African Apartheid
- Occupy Wall Street
- Gaza Genocide
- etc.
I am curious. Has there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?
The Young Turk movement started with medical students.
There were quite a few pro-segregation protests when schools were desegregated.
There's also a lot of cases where students with real grievances and positive intentions are coopted; most of the students protesting in the early 90s in eastern europe didn't intend to do a color revolution and have their countries stripped for parts.
Thank you for bringing those up. However, unless I'm misunderstanding them, the only one of those where the protesters were in the wrong were the pro-segregation protests, correct? But weren't those protests by-and-large made up of parents? (Perhaps along with some of their children doing what they were told?) Not exactly the "rebellious youth sticking it to the man" we generally mean by the words student protest.
weren’t those protests by-and-large made up of parents?
Yes and no, a number of universities had pro-segregation actions by students including protests
History is always more complicated and nuanced than any narrative would lead you to believe.
Closest I can come with is nuclear disarmament. Not because I think they were on the wrong side of it, but I think it's far less clear cut and there's a credible argument that MAD has worked.
We can't really prove that MAD has worked without seeing what would have happened if we hadn't done MAD.
I'd argue that without MAD, the cold war might not have happened, which could have avoided a massive number of conflicts.
there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?
-
National Socialist German Student League were literal Nazis
-
The Red Guards were a Student-led paramilitary group.
-
Japanese Students protested against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo)
-
Veganism?
The key word is "widescale". The reason is that a malignant narcissist can get a small group of cultists to do anything. But in order to get a large group of cultists to do something, he needs a propaganda machine like fox News and they have a much older demographic
I think the examples I gave were wide-scale for their time in history.
But I don't really want to argue against OPs point. The intelligent, not yet indoctrinated, youth are usually on the right side of history.
I completely agree with you. There might be some exceptions but in general what you say is true: when there's a sea change, a zeigeist, young people are the first to sense it. You don't get sweeping changes and protests at the senior care facility.
I think it's also that the young have less to lose and more to gain. Most gen Xer are sitting around on their hands because they stand to lose much more than they gain. They have mortgage and car payments, children, and health insurance. If anything breaks, that can all come tumbling down.
- Veganism?
Hold up, you think the vegans are in the wrong? You can say that they're annoying, but in terms of ethics and morals it's not even an argument. It's fine to not like tofu or whatever, but there is no amount of verbal gymnastics anyone can do to even begin to justify the modern meat and dairy industries. That shit is basically Animal Auschwitz times a billion.
it's possible that the modern industry is bad and vegans are still wrong
I mainly put that in to see what reaction it would get.
For arguments sake, there is a militant strain of veganism (e.g. PETA) that is not always on the right side of history. But the damage done there is tiny compared to the other side of the scale.
-
