Yale students confront Silliman College Master Nicholas Christakis

Victor Davis Hanson tends to chuckle when he sees the Revolution devouring its own.

The West is ablaze with protests not just because of the failure of the Left in the cities, on campuses, and across Europe to offer a workable paradigm, but also because of the Left’s canonic assurances that it could and would.

Deans and mayors promised utopia. When it did not arrive, the only concession they had left was more failed efforts to achieve the unachievable. People turn on their own more violently than they turn on others, as if a liberal, paternal dean should be able to snap his fingers and make liberal students happy. When he so promises, his ensuing failure only makes things worse.

All the banned micro-aggressions, all the safe spaces, all the trigger warnings, and all the fired deans will not make today’s postmodern students happy, much less appreciative, any more than would mandating authentic ethnic cooks and more year-round hot-tubs. Like addicts, they believe one more cheap fix from a compliant supplier will finally do the trick. Don’t expect the addict to show gratitude to his dealer.

Leftist revolutionaries cannot be satisfied, because they have long ago been given all they asked for, and are now rebelling for the idea of rebelling against something, even if it is reduced to a micro-aggression or founded on a myth like “Hands up, don’t shoot.” Millions of inner-city youths are as furious as are elite students. They got the liberal city and the liberal university they wanted — only to rage that human nature is not liberal and that contentment cannot be found through mirror-image government, but only within themselves. How can you rebel against that age-old truth?

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