Radical leftism then and now: defiance versus compliance

For students of the 60s and early 70s, radical leftism was a stance of defiance rather than compliance with what they were being taught in universities, unlike today.

This means that back then the left involved a somewhat different type of people with somewhat different personalities, although the older leftists ended up being the teachers and mentors of today’s leftists. Once that happened, the mantra of the old left wasn’t “question authority” but “follow our authority; we know best.”

And yet I believe that the leftist youth of today still think of themselves as rebels rather than followers. After all, though they are compliant with their professors, many disagree with their own parents and grandparents. To that end – thinking of themselves as rebels – they also keep feeling they have to up the ante and become more and more strident and outrageous in their demands, in order to differentiate themselves from said older leftist mentors.