Introduction to Panel on Protest and Revolution

It is not out of a merely abstract interest that we reflect on the subject of protest and revolution. The wave of protest seizing so many young people of our culture calls for a thorough understanding of its etiology. An enormous amount of tension must have arisen between, on the one hand, the demands of society made upon the young to adapt themselves and, on the other hand, the wishes of these young people to change these demands in their favour. This tension quite suddenly manifested itself in protest actions and revolutionary declarations by the young.

Two things strike us as remarkable: (1) The protests seem to be independent of the ideologies and sociological structures of the different countries and thus to be based on more general grounds. In authoritarian countries they have been suppressed but the tendencies are unmistakably there. (2) Protests and revolutionary hopes are most energetically expressed by those young people who have had the benefit of the most extensive education. Most of them have in no way been restricted or deprived; one could even argue that society has adapted itself to their needs in the sense of providing a permissive education. Thus, it is not some materially underprivileged class which rejects the existing conditions. Rather, it is the very group selected by their society for the leading positions which has become rebellious. One wonders: could it be that these young people have become particularly sensitive to the course of contemporary history and to the stress placed upon modern man? Have they become sensitive to the "false consciousness" of the manipulated masses, and has this led them to resistance and rebellion?

For the first time in history revolutionary tendencies have become visible in an affluent society. Something in the structure of social positions and in the experience of the amenities which these positions provide must have changed so that the aversion against joining in the competitive society has become st